John Howard is off to Washington, reported the
Sydney Morning Herald last night. According to this story, the purpose of the trip was to further cultivate relations with U.S. President George Bush:
'Mr Howard and Mr Bush will discuss the future of troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran's nuclear program, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the growing importance of China and India in formal talks on Tuesday. The two leaders will meet informally on Sunday afternoon when Mr Howard will plant two saplings from the White House garden in the grounds of the Australian embassy. The trees are a gift from the president to mark the relationship between the two countries. President Bush will also host a black-tie dinner in the White House on Tuesday night - only the seventh such honour he has accorded to a visiting leader during his two terms of office.'
What the
Herald didn't tell Australian readers, but what the
Australian Jewish News had no problem informing Australian Jews, is that between his Sunday and Tuesday appointments with Bush, Howard will receive 'the prestigious B'nai B'rith international Presidential Gold Medal for his "outstanding" support of Israel and the Jewish people at a ceremony' in Washington. (NOTE)
I can't imagine why the
Herald is ignoring this aspect of Howard's Washington trip. It's hardly a secret, given that it's already been reported by an Australian Jewish newspaper. Actually, I'm lying - I can imagine it only too well. Thanks to selective media reporting, it would come as a great surprise to most Australians to discover that Prime Minister Howard has performed 'outstanding' services to Israel. Presumably, what the
Herald doesn't want the Australian public to realize - but what Australian Jews are allowed to know - is who Howard, along with Bush and Blair and the other most fervent supporters of the Iraq war - is really working for. As it's increasingly obvious that the Iraq war was essentially a war to advance Israeli interests, it's also increasingly obvious that Howard's support for that war - over and against the wishes of the Australian people - issues from Howard's Zionism. (Cynics would probably point out here that Jewish donors give something like twenty million dollars to Howard's Liberal party each year.) Howard has been notoriously inflexible on Iraq, despite the overwhelming opposition to the war from ordinary Australians, precisely because he's not working for Australians - he's working for Israel.
Although Howard would probably deserve a highly 'prestigious' B'nai B'rith honour solely on account of his support for the neocons' diabolical Middle East misadventures, he has performed numerous other favours for the Jews over the years. Let's attempt a partial list:
(1) Forced the withdrawal of an invitation to Yasser Arafat from the then-deputy prime minister, Tim Fisher, to visit Australia in 1997.
(2) Put in place an extradition treaty with Latvia in order to enable the extradition of alleged war criminal Konrad Kalejs, specifically as called upon to do by Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) Director Colin Rubenstein in 2000. (
SOURCE)
(3) Has made Australia join the U.S. in the United Nations as the sole source of opposition to measures that would hold Israel accountable for its persistent mistreatment of the Palestinians. As AIJAC Director Rubenstein put it in 2002, 'at the United Nations under John Howard's leadership, the Australian government has abstained from or opposed morally skewered [sic] and sometimes viciously [sic] anti-Israel resolutions. It's assisted Israel's admission into the WEOG Group at the United Nations. Australia was right to stay away from the conference of high-contracting parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention in December that convened solely for the purpose of hectoring [sic] and delegitimizing [sic] Israel. Above all, at the Durban Conference on Racism, which just turned into a display of the very evils they were supposed to combat, Australia took a vitally important role in moderating [sic] the proceedings.' (
SOURCE)
(4) Aligned Australia with the neocons' insane and destructive war on Islam.
(5) Has manipulated Australia in the direction of a society in which public criticism of Israel is becoming virtually unthinkable. NB: At the time of writing, an Australian MP, Julia Irwin, is under attack for having pointed out that there is effectively in force a 'code of silence' forbidding parliamentary discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (
SOURCE)
In addition, there have also been allegations that the Port Arthur massacre was actually an Israeli operation: Joe Vialls, "Special Forces at Port Arthur"
here and Judicial Biz, "Port Arthur Massacre"
here. Although I can't claim to have seen any evidence implicating Israel so far (other than the fact that several key members of the Australian anti-gun lobby are apparently Jewish), the massacre, which took place only about nine weeks after he took power, could well have been a 'baptism of fire' by which Howard proved his willingness to sacrifice Australian lives for Israeli interests. If Port Arthur was a Zionist black op, it is not hard to see that Howard would have earned the eternal gratitude of Israel for having covered up the conspiracy so well and for so long.
But whether the state of Israel is also indebted to Howard for the Port Arthur coverup, the fact remains that there is a generous amount of information already in the public domain on the 'outstanding' services Howard has been performing on for Israel for ten years. But if Jews are allowed to know about it, doesn't the Australian mainstream media have an obligation to tell the Australian public about it? Why is the only way an Australian citizen can ever find out what his or her country's leader is really up to is by dipping occasionally into the Jewish press, something that most of us Gentiles would rarely think of doing? Is it because they are afraid people might asking questions like the following: if Howard can do so much for the Jews, how come he doesn't seem to be able to find it in him to do something for Australians?
NOTE: I can find no information concerning previous recipients of the B'nai B'rith international Presidential Gold Medal - which tends to make me wonder how 'prestigious' it can be. In any case, it is hardly Howard's first such honour - he has a seemingly endless list of Jewish plaudits. In 2000, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Bar-Ilan University. (Previous recipients included Margeret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev.) (
SOURCE) In 2002, he was bestowed 'the American Jewish Committee's Award for distinguished public service for his record and that of his government, for his steadfast alliance with the United States, its strong support for and close bilateral ties with the state of Israel and his open and warm relations with Australia's Jewish community.' (
SOURCE) In 2004, the American Jewish Committee awarded him the American [sic] Liberties Medallion. 'Previous recipients of the award include Martin Luther King, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, Vaclav Havel, Natan Sharansky, and Elie Wiesel.' (
SOURCE) And in 2005 [?], he was awarded the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce's highest honour, the Leon Liberman Award for trade. (
SOURCE) The B'nai B'rith medal looks like merely the capstone to a period in which Jewish organisations have thanked Howard at every opportunity for his ten years of devoted service to Israel.
