Mannie Blog, LGS, SPAIDS, InterSection, Israel/Palestine, Jewish Issues

The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 1993 edition defines a concentration camp as:
for the detention of non-combatants, political prisoners,internees, etc., especially in Nazi Germany (with connotations of inhuman privations endured by the inhabitants).
In 1992 in Australia a federal Labor Party government introduced detention camps for asylum seekers to Australia.
In 2003 we have a situation where people who have asked for asylum in Australia after fleeing horrific situations in their home countries and enduring the most appalling transports in the hopes of arriving in a country where their plight may be viewed sympathetically and they may be given asylum, are locked in concentration camps.
The Australian public, many thousands of whom - and/or their ancestors arrived in this country in similar ways, are now shouting loudly about the necessity of "border protection".
Hysteria has surrounded the arrival of 14 people of Turkish Kurdish origin who tried to arrive here and gain asylum, only to be turned away brutally by some illegal actions on the part of the Federal Coalition government.
What will it take for the people of this country to see through their politicians and behave humanely to desperate people such as many of them or their ancestors were?

In response to my letter published by the Sunday Age on 16 November 2003, Liat Kirby of Brunswick wrote back in the Sunday Age of 23 November 2003 as follows:
Mannie de Saxe (sic) makes Zionist sound like a dirty word (Letters, 16/11). The definition of Zionism is simply a Jewish homeland for Jewish people - if not Israel, where? The word was coined in 1890 with that in mind. De Saxe has the luxury of living in Preston. Let's hope he never has to face the situation where he needs Zionist Israel for his survival. And what exactly is the "post-Zionist world" he speaks of?

My response is:
Recent estimates are that there are about 13 million Jews in the world. About 5 million live in Israel. The other 8 million live around the world, the largest number in the USA.
If 8 million Jews needed Zionist Israel for survival, would it be able to accommodate them all?
As for what post-Zionism is, I would advise Liat Kirby to get hold of the following books and read them - one is by an Israeli living and working at the moment in Sydney:
The Challenge of Post-Zionism edited by Ephraim Nimni
and The Other:
Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent edited by Roane Carey and Jonathan Shanin.
Kirby's address is given as Brunswick, in Australia, NOT in Israel!
PS: My father Morris De Saxe was President of the South African Zionist Federation from 1927-1930 when he died in Johannesburg aged 31.
My uncle Justice Simon Kuper was president of the South African Zionist Federation from 1958 to 1963 when he was murdered in Johannesburg aged 56.

I sent the letter below today, 24 November 2003, to the editor of the Australian Jewish News in the hope that he will publish it. However, he didn't publish the last letter I sent him, but the Sunday Age published it on 16 November 2003, and there were four responses: two by phone, one by post and the fourth as a letter in the following week's Sunday Age, 23 November 2003. This was the only negative one out of the four, and I think it shows that there are many more Jews in Australia who support views similar to mine than the Jewish and Zionist lobbyists would have us believe!
-----------------------------------------------
Mannie De Saxe
PO Box 1675
Preston South
Vic 3072
Phone:(03)9471 4878
email:josken@zipworld.com.au
http://www.zipworld.com.au/~josken
24 November 2003

The “Ashrawi Affair” as represented in the AJN - a newspaper for Jews in
Australia:
In the letters pages of the 14 November 2003 AJN there were 17 letters
altogether.
All 17 letters were about Ashrawi - and were against her!
In the letters pages of the 21 November 2003 AJN there were 11 letters and
9 of
them were on Ashrawi - against her.
Talk about tunnel vision!
My letter to the AJN on the “Affair” was not published in the AJN but WAS
published
in the Sunday Age of 16 November.
There have been 4 responses to that letter - three of them positive.
How is it that the AJN is unable to publish letters supporting the
awarding of the
Sydney Peace Prize to Dr Hanan Ashrawi - or were there none?
Funny (tragic really) that there has been very little criticism in
Australia of Ariel
Sharon and his government in relation to the ongoing violence between
Israelis and
Palestinians and the building of the apartheid ”Berlin” wall.
The experience of my one little letter seems to suggest that there are
many Jews in
Australia who have similar views to mine - but according to the AJN every
Jew in
this country supports Israel, right or wrong.
Why doesn't the AJN publish the views from Israelis who are more and more
opposed to what their government is doing to destabilise the whole region
and
increase anti-semitism around the world?
Mannie De Saxe

Mannie De Saxe
2/12 Murphy Grove
Preston
Vic 3072
Phone:(03)9471 4878
email:josken@zipworld.com.au
http://www.zipworld.com.au/~josken
Saturday 8 November 2003

The unbelievably hysterical outburst by members of the Australian Jewish community over the visit of Palestinian Dr Hanan Ashrawi to receive the Sydney Peace Prize awarded to her by the Sydney Peace Foundation has only been matched in recent years by the outbursts against proposed visits to Australia by David Irving, revisionist Holocaust historian.

The “leaders” of the pack have been the so-called “leaders” of Jewish organisations in Australia and the media, both Jewish and non-Jewish. The Jewish media, specifically the Melbourne editor of the Australian Jewish News, have set a benchmark in intolerance, distortion and selective quotes from Ashrawi's speeches and actions in past years.

The Melbourne AJN editor, in his weekly column on 7 November 2003 stated: “Unfortunately, the vast coverage in the mainstream media has focussed on the Jewish response - as opposed to the real issue at hand, which is Dr Ashrawi's dubious credentials for the prize.”

Oh, really? Dubious? No one knows better the reality of the situation in the occupied territories than Dr Ashrawi - after all, she lives there all the time, yet we have Jewish media and “leaders” telling Australian Jews what a terrible mistake the awarding of a “peace” prize is to Ashrawi.

It is interesting to note what is NOT quoted in Australia - the support people like Ashrawi have from Israelis and Palestinians for her outspoken statements and collaboration with Israeli Jews and Palestinians in their efforts to end the deadlock created by the Israeli and US governments in achieving statehood for the Palestinian people.

The hysterical Jews in Australia should take a step back and look at themselves - if they are so passionate about Israel they have every right to go and live there and defend what they are screaming their heads off about - the survival of a Zionist Israeli state in a post-Zionist world developing around them!

Mannie De Saxe
Jews Against Oppression and Occupation

Well, time to get a few things off my chest once again!!
A news item in The Age dated 5 November 2003 states that" The European Commission has apologised to Israel for a new opinion poll that shows that Israel is the country most regarded as a threat to world peace by ordinary Europeans.
The President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, said the results 'point to the continued existence of a bias that must be condemned out of hand.'
The telephone poll, part of ongoing surveys by the European Union, sampled 7500 respondents in all 15 EU states. Presented with the names of 14 countries, respondents were asked if they regarded each in turn as a threat to world peace. The results, released on Monday, (3 November 2003) showed that 59 per cent agreed that Israel was a threat to world peace. The US came second on 53 per cent with Iran and North Korea.
Iraq came next on 52 per cent, followed by Afghanistan on 50."
The fact that the President apologised for Europeans shows how strong the Israeli lobby is in Europe - it is absolute nonsense for Prodi to abase himself in this manner and proves that the Europeans can see through all the false propaganda thrown at them from around the world.
Once more I heartily commend the book "Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky.
Now the staggering thing about the above is that many of us have felt for a long time what this survey has shown, that the US and Israel are the real and present dangers to world peace with running conflicts stimulated by both countries which aid and abet each other.
This is the same week as George W Bush has managed to push through some ridiculous anti-abortion legislation in addition to other issues relating to the ongoing war in Iraq.
The Zionist furore in Australia over the Sydney Peace Foundation giving this year's Sydney Peace Prize (2003) to Dr Hanan Ashrawi continues apace, but the Premier of New South Wales stood his ground last night and Dr Ashrawi was awarded the prize. Apparently there was a sell-out crowd there, so much for the Zionists and their subversive antics.
A New South Wales Upper House member of Parliament, Ian Cohen, who is Jewish and a member of The Greens, supported the decision and supported Bob Carr, NSW Premier. At least SOME people can see the wood for the trees, even if the so-called representatives of many of the Jewish and Zionist bodies in Australia are so blinded by their absolute support for that Israeli terrorist, Ariel Sharon!!