We should all be able to invoke the Israeli defence

I have discovered the hard way that "But Israel gets to kill who they want!" does not actually hold up in a court of law as a legitimate defence.

This is very disappointing and, frankly, deeply unfair.

I guess we can't always get what we want. I mean, I got a friend who wants a tiny rabbit who can fit in her palm who'd be called Subcommandante Marcos so she can set up a Republic in her bedroom and rule it with the tiny bunny. (This is actually a true story -- you may not believe it but it is true: Carlo Sands does have a friend.)

But I still feel it would be fairer if we could all use the Israeli defence.

"The bastard spilled my drink, Your Honour, so I killed three Egyptian border guards and destroyed more of Gaza's power and water supplies."

"Oh, that's alright, Sands! Why didn't you say so! You are free to go, have a lollipop and the Golan Heights."

But no. It is one rule for Empire's favourite mass murderers and another for the rest of us.

It is quite stunning really. I mean it is nothing new but it is still quite stunning. Israel kills three Egyptian cops -- that is, you know, like another country's cops, *in Egypt* and Egypt's government ... asks for an apology.

I mean, they killed three fucking Egyptian citizens in an unprovoked attack. When your military murders another nation's citizen's in their own country for no reason, it kinda counts as a "significant diplomatic incident" -- just behind serving only light beer at the annual embassy piss-up.

The Egyptian people, fresh from having tossed out a US puppet complicit in Israel's crimes, took it a little harder. There were days of furious mass protests outside the Israeli embassy, which gave the world a brand new superhero: FLAGMAN!

Yes, Egyptian man Ahmed al-Shehat scaled the 22-story building that houses the Israeli embassy, and -- to the roars of the crowd -- tore down the Israeli flag and raised the Egyptian one in its place. The flag was duly delivered to the crowd, who promptly burned the fucking thing.

You can watch the glorious even on YouTube.

Finally, a Superhero to be proud of.



But not even Flagman's heroics were enough to shift the situation.

The humiliation for Egyptians was made worse when, more than a year after Israel massacred nine Turkish citizens in an unprovoked attack in international waters (that some fools compared to an act of "piracy", which as I have argued elsewhere is a gross slander on the good name of pirates everywhere), the Turkish government finally responded by cutting all military ties with Israel.

Israel still sees no reason to even say "sorry" to Turkey, let alone Egypt.

So, with the Egyptian regime still refusing to even expel the Israeli ambassador from Cairo despite Israel's refusal to even say sorry for its unprovoked murder of Egyptian citizens, the Egyptian people took matters into their own hands.

On September 9, a huge demonstration descended on the Israeli embassy in Cairo and, with sledgehammers and their bare hands, tore down the security wall protecting the Israeli embassy and then stormed the building, removing a whole lot of Israeli embassy documents in a kinda of mass direct action WikiLeaks moment.

The Israeli ambassador, all the diplomatic staff and their families were forced to flee -- being evacuated back to Israel by plane.

The Israeli media ran stories about how terrible this was, how as the protesters stormed the building, diplomatic staff were forced into some back room with nothing but armed Israeli guards to protect them against an unarmed crowd. Well, their lives were *clearly* in danger because there is simply no way Israel would kill Egyptians in Egypt is there?

It must have been absolutely terrifying for them, which is horrible because the border guards killed without provocation by an Israeli air strike probably at least had no time to be terrified. They were just blown apart with no warning. That is how *civilised* nations do it.

And so the Egyptian people decided to cut diplomatic ties themselves.



Let us recap.

On August 18, there were attacks in southern Israel that left eight people dead and 40 injured. It was, without any question, an atrocity. An atrocity to which no one has claimed responsibility.

Israel blamed the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees -- who denied having anything to do with it.

Cue fresh bombings of besieged Gaza. As well as the three Egyptian cops, by August 26, 22 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed, including children.

For attacks no one knows who was responsible for. Despite which, more than two dozen people are dead with no evidence a single one had anything to do with the initial attack.

If someone steals your iPod, and you go around breaking all the windows in your neighbourhood in retaliation, try the "Israel defence" in your inevitable court case. It won't work. You are not Israel.

Balance

But, it occurred it me, I may be guilty here of only presenting *one side* of the story. Perhaps I am not being balanced enough. And, as anyone who knows me can strongly attest, if Carlo Sands is anything, he is -- above all else -- *balanced*.

So I sought out the counter position on the question of Israel and its behaviour in general and I came across an article from The Australian, which being a Rupert Murdoch paper is one of the most balanced news sources you could find.

I found this article to very convincing and it made me seriously rethink everything I had previously thought.

In a June 7 opinion piece entitled "Palestinians' deadly strategy doomed to fail", The Australian's Middle East correspondent John Lyons opened my eyes to the true situation.

"It is time", he said, "for Palestinians to resume a non-violent struggle of negotiations and give up their strategy of confronting Israeli bullets".

This was in response to a series of protests that occurred in early June on Israeli borders by Palestinians and their supporters in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights in Syria and Lebanon.

The Israeli military opened fire on unarmed protesters on the frontier of Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. More than 20 unarmed protesters were killed.

Now you might think the aggressor here was Israel -- shooting down unarmed protesters demonstrating for an end to illegal Israeli occupation. But that is where you would be wrong.

Lyons' explains quite clearly the aggressor in this case is not the ones doing the shooting but the ones getting shot.

The Palestinians, you see, should stop "confronting Israeli bullets" in such a threatening and provocative manner. They were virtually *begging* the Israeli Defence Forces to shoot them.

How else is Israel meant to respond to such thugs confronting their bullets with with their bodies? Such a threat to Israel's very existence can not be expected to go unanswered.

The Palestinians getting themselves shot so willfully, Lyons points out, merely "allows Israel to argue that it cannot agree to a Palestinian state while it has so much instability on its borders".

The logic is so frighteningly simple, I cannot believe I never saw it before. The death of an Israeli at the hands of a Palestinian is a terrorist atrocity. Palestinians being killed by Israelis is "instability".

Instability, what is more, that is the fault of the Palestinians who brought it on themselves with all their unarmed "protesting" and other such anti-Semitic provocations.

So, "rather than being shot trying to climb through barbed wire" in such a horrifically violent way (just *imagine* how traumatising having to shot an unarmed Palestinian is for some poor member of the IDF!), Lyons argues reasonably that the Palestinians should continue to try and negotiate in the framework of the 1993 Oslo Accords that hs brought them so much progress over the years.

I have thought this through and I can finally see the big picture -- this whole "getting shot dead by Israeli bullets" is just the latest anti-Semitic plot to destroy the Jewish race. The Palestinians maybe irrational fanatics, but they are not stupid.

The plot is clear. If the Palestinains can force Israel to shot enough unarmed people asking for the return of occupied lands, as per countless UN resolutions, then surely, eventually, Israel will run out of bullets.

And then they will be screwed.

You only have to think this thing through to its logical conclusion. Who arms the Israelis? The United States, to the tune of US$3 billion a year.

And the richest nation on Earth is mired in a severe economic crisis and has a nationlal debt in the trillions. Some $2.1 trillion in spending cuts are coming -- while most of it will come from social security for pensioners are other luxuries, it cannot be ruled out that a bit, at least, might come from military spending.

The US is weak right now. It is vulneralbe. If only the Palestinians keep up their violent strategy of of forcing Israel to shoot enough bullets at them at their unarmed protests, they might bring the thing to a tipping point.

The bastards.

A Palestinian confronts Israeli bullets in a bid to bankrupt the Jewish state and drive all Jews into the sea. (*** NOTE ON THIS BELOW)


But the plot thickens even more.

There is an arguably *even bigger* anti-Semitic threat emerging *right here* in Australia! Yes, Palestine solidarity protesters have been holding protests calling for a boycott of Max Brenner chocolate stores.

Now, the protesters *claim* this is because Max Brenner is on a list of companies with ties to the Israeli military that dozens of Palestinian civil society organisations have called for a boycott against in a growing international campaign backed by the likes of South African Nobel Peace Prize winning anti-apartheid activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu, but really any thinking person can see it is being targetted simply because the multinational corporation was set up by Jewish people and this is *just like* the Nazi's boycott of Jewish owned businesses in the 1930s.

It has gotten so dire than the poor multinational chain has had to resort to using such renowned anti-fascists as the British National Party-linked Australian Protectionist Party to defend its stores from the anti-Semitic hordes and their chants asking Max Brenner to cut its ties with IDF army units responsible for serious atrocities.

It was the Murdoch press to the rescue *once more*, with a heartfelt piece in The Australian on how poor Jewish chocolatier Max Brenner is stunned to find himself at the centre of the Middle Eastern conflict.

"Max Brenner says he is a man of peace who hates all forms of violence," an outraged Cameron Stewart writes. "So how has this chocolate maker become the target of anti-Israeli protesters in Australia who accuse him of being complicit with the Israeli military?"

Stewart tells his readers that Mr Brenner was "not available for an interview", but produced a quote from 2009, in which Brenner apparently responded to the protests by saying: "Whether it is in Israel or not, anything to do with violence, aggressiveness or appearing at protests or boycotts seems silly (to me). But then again, I am just a chocolate-maker."

What is all the more impressive about this heartstring-tugging piece is that Max Brenner does not even exist.

There is no Max Brenner, he is just a corporate marketing creation.

Nonetheless, I see no reason why his non-existent status should blind us to how much he is suffering right now at the hands of the anti-Semites. Pretend people have feelings too! My heart breaks whenever I think of the fictitious Max Brenner crying himself to sleep every night, make-believe tears rolling down his not-really-there face.

All decent people should be haunted by the fictitious tears of the non-existent Jewish chocolate-maker Max Brenner, the result of his being targetted by anti-Semites asking that the multinational corporation his made-up name fronts stops sponsoring Israeli military units responsible for very real atrocities.


It is a terrible state of affairs. Having taking the time to *truly listen* to the other side of the story, provided with such objectivity by the Murdoch media, I can clearly see the error of my ways. As far as I am concerned, Israel can kill whoever the fuck they want!

Just so long, it is all I ask, that the rest of us are accorded the exact same privilige. It is really only fair and Kyle Sandilands has been *really* pissing me off.




"I wish I could take your tears and replace them with laughter, Long live Palestine, Long live Gaza!" Infamously anti-Semitic Iraqi-English hip hop artist Lowkey's anthem of hate calls for the total destruction of the Jewish race using code words such as "We stand for peace" and "I know there's plenty of Rabbi's that agree with me".


*** It has been pointed out, in the comment section, that this photo is incorrectly captioned. It is not a Palestinian woman in the photo who has so violently confronted Israeli bullets, but an American Jewish peace activist, Emily Honochowicz. Well, this just goes to show that evil anti-Semites come from all sources, no matter how unexpected. For more information on this question, check out http://nabisalehsolidarity.wordpress.com. It'll shock ya.

Dear Kyle Sandlilands and 2Day FM management

2Day FM morning show host Kyle Sandilands, the scumbag who gives bags filled with scum a bad name, is facing media controversy again.

The April 11 Sydney Morning Herald said Sandilands’ “ seemingly unguarded comments in a recent trade industry podcast have caused further ructions within 2Day FM”.

This being the man who responded to a 14-year-old girl’s shock revelation while strapped to a lie detector live on air and questioned about her sex life that she had in fact been raped, “so have you had any other sexual experiences?”

Ever a charming fellow, Sandilands forced his 2Day FM morning radio show’s newsreader Geoff Field to resign through constant on air bullying.

Sandilands described Field as “like a step child you can't get rid of”.

Field complained to 2Day FM’s human resources about the constant public belittling. Sandilands responded in the Media Week podcast with: “He was running off down to HR . . . bitching and carrying on ... Geoff's an older gay man, easily offended.”

Field will now work on 2Day FM’s drive time show with Andy and Hamish.

Field, who addressed Sydney’s March 20 demonstration in favour of legalising same-sex marriage, has actually shown a willingness to perform acts aimed at human progress — as opposed to Sandilands’ ceaseless efforts to try to drown it in a sewer.

But it wouldn’t be right to direct all the blame at Sandilands. By his own admission, he is just doing his job.

The SMH article noted: “Sandilands says when he started on 2Day's night-time program Hot 30, management wanted someone to stir things up. ‘That's what [then program director] Jeff Allis said to me: Do what you want. Don't listen to anyone. If you don't like what the program manager says, just don't do it,’ Sandilands says.

“‘He was my get-out-of-jail-free card. So I sailed through my first five or six years at Austereo protected by the group program director. That's why I was such an arsehole to everyone and anyone.’”

But after Sandliands, already reviled for the on-air rape stunt, advised comedian Madga Szabanski that she should try a Nazi concentration camp to lose more weight, the public criticism was getting pretty extreme.

So, he had a crisis meeting with Austereo chairperson Peter Harvie.

Said Sandilands: “I was more cautious with Peter Harvie than anyone else on the planet because I’d already lost the Idol job and I was thinking this guy holds the purse strings to my other income.

“He told me ... ‘We’re in trouble and I don’t know how we’re going to get through this.’ Told me people were out for my blood. People were out for his blood.

“He came to the decision that I would continue the suspension for another few weeks and he thought it would be a good idea if the salary I earned in that time was distributed through charities...”

Sandilands, concerned as ever with the cause closest to his own heart, responded: “I didn't think that was a good idea because I wanted the money.”

So, while I am on the topic of letters to dear friends, I thought it only fair to lay off the US ruling class for a minute to focus closer to home.

I am, however, fucking lazy. Therefore, I have decided to leave it the the greatest poet I know: John Cooper Clarke. You can now enjoy the Bard of Salford in conjunction with this blog’s renowned collection of google ads, just at the top of the page (great money-spending opportunities only a click away).

This poem is not just dedicated to Sandilands, the public face of vomit, but the likes of Allis and Harvie who stick their fingers down his throat to help him spew up on air.




“Do us all a favour, here... wear this polythene bag”

Wh*t the fuck is wr*ng w*th the w*rld?

There is something that has been fucking bugging me for some time.

It is something I simply cannot understand. I try and come up blank.

It is the sort of thing that is so utterly pointless, so petty in its stupidity and just so completely, mindblowingly bizarre that I feel despair.

I am talking about the insistence of so many otherwise seemingly intelligent people in refusing to fucking spell swearwords properly.

Here is a memo from Carlo Sands: “F*ck” fools no one.

Everyone knows what this word is, what it means and, above all, how the fucking thing is supposed to be spelled!

Excluding the “u” does not achieve one thing. It is just “bullsh*t” – which is another example of how to prove you are a fool.

Swearwords, of course, have a long history of being censored in the mainstream media. It will get beeped-out on the telly or dashed-out in the press.

Let’s be clear: the reasons are the insanity and total hypocrisy of bourgeois morality.

You can build obscene wealth on the back of the most extreme exploitation, you can rape and pillage, you can carry out genocidal wars ... but you cannot publicly utter certain words in common usage throughout society.

This attitude originated through the approach to a society’s dominant religion. The dominant religion was used to prop up and justify the dominant economic and power structures. As such, it had to be treated with respect and be above criticism and mockery.

In otherwords, blasphemy must not be allowed.

Therefore, there were always certain words and phrases that, however much they may be used by people day-in and day-out, the official stance of respectable society was that these collection of letters forming certain words cannot be uttered in a public sphere.

What was traditionally considered blasphemy in our society is, these days, no longer considered so offensive. But the basic attitude persists (because bad attitudes have a way of hanging around) applied to a series of other words that, when thought about logically, are not inherently better or worse than any others.

And so our newspapers are still full of f---s, even though every single person reading the article knows what the missing letters are and society doesn’t come tumbling down because of that fact.

This may be one of the most pointless gestures ever, but neither does it surprise me. There is little that is sane, reasonably or consistent about “official” morality.

The corporate media will happily quote a government spokesperson making the most offensive statements supporting for some genocidal war, or advocating a policy that guarantees total eco-destruction, but will deny you or me the airspace to say “Get fucked, shitface” in response.

It’s madness.

But what I want to know is, what is the fucking deal with all these otherwise perfectly reasonable people I see in places like Facebook who, in the groups they set up and in status messages they post, *insist* on aping this petty little example of official hypocrisy.?

I offer one example: the otherwise worthy Facebook group WHERE THE F*CK IS MY ... found it.

This group speaks to me and I relate to every aspect of it except its strange relationship to the English language.

It is spelled FUCK!

Believe me, you can say “fuck” and “shit” to your heart’s content on Facebook with no problems whatsoever.

But for some reason a bunch of otherwise sane people have gone and internalised this surreal approach to the human language whereby you have to hide certain letters in certain words to appease some bizarre sense of propriety.

I mean, what do people think, God is sitting up there on the verge of throwing down a lightning bolt but stops and says “Oh, its alright, they’ve blacked out a letter or two”?

Of course, some people just don’t like the word. They think it unnecessarily crude and many say it is overused.

Fine. No one is forced to say “fuck”.

But if you don’t like a word, you don’t fucking use it. Those offended by the word cannot be appeased by pretending you have forgotten a vowel.

Most of all, it deeply unfair to some perfectly innocent letters.

The letter “u” is not offensive. It is not dangerous. It doesn’t deserve to be censured.

There is no “u” in “war”. Or in “racism”.

Or in Bono.

“U” is being unfairly maligned.

But it seems some of a particularly puritan bent also have a problem with the letter “c”, and thus spell “fuck” as “f—k”.

Again, most unfair.

There is no “c” in Kyle Sandilands. True, there *is* two in Nickleback, but that’s hardly the most offensive thing about that band: that would be every fucking thing they have ever recorded.

Some real ultra-moralists cannot even stand to see the letter “k” and so insist on typing “f---“, or referring in a whisper to “the ‘f’ word”.

Well, I don't know who decreed “f” a respectable letter, but I say “u”, “c” and “k” are equally fine.

It may be pointed out there are still others that go further give us [EXPLETIVE DELETED] or the ever-popular #&@!

I actually prefer this approach, because at least has the charm of leaving it to your imagination.

It inspires creativity as you get to guess the words used that were so offensive not a single letter could be shown in public. Each reader can invent their own sentences.

For instance: “The [expletive deleted] with the [expletive deleted] inserted it in the [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] to [expletive deleted] the [expletive deleted] who was apparently a dentist, but I said [expletive deleted] with [expletive deleted] to [expletive deleted] your own [expletive deleted] mother!”

There is nothing to inspire the imagination about seeing “F*ck”. It is just infuriating in its stupidity.

Nothing bad will happen to you, you won’t get arrested, JUST FUCKING SAY FUCK IF YOU FUCKING WANT TO SAY FUCK!



“Fuck ‘what I did was your fault somehow’. Fuck all the presents, I threw all that shit out. Fuck all the crying, it didn’t mean jack. Well guess what yo, FUCK YOU RIGHT BACK”. Nothing bad happened to Frankee when she responded to some arsehole in this way, she just felt a hell of a lot better about the world.