Five years gone since my mate left home
he purchased his ticket to slavery
consigned him to the southern land
to wait for me in purgatory.
His pretty girl cried silken tears
sent to the gallows with cotton in her ears
they said she lied by the Rule of Law
born and bred a gypsy woman.
I’ll be going now, and I’ll see you soon
Sailing beneath the rising moon,
I’ll look for you in Melbourne town,
and there’s never been a heart so torn.
I stole an heiress in a field one morn
My heart’s in tatters and my hopes are gone,
In 1825, cold and wet and barely alive
I miss my woman and the babes she’s borne,
Fated to hang by a weeping judge,
Now sailing on the winds of scorn.
Blow the winds and fill the sails
take us to hell in New South Wales
The hulks are full in England
of many more like me
Bound to be Australians
with ironclad guarantees.
Me life’s not me own, I’m a Government man,
don’t remember when me term began,
the squatter’s chains rattle in me bones
to please the whims of the English throne.
Thrown into the white man’s cell
for laughin’ late and givin’ ‘em hell,
grabbed by the coppers, ripped from the land
no migaloo can understand.
In 1985 another Murri suicides,
There’s plenty more in store
from white settlers such as we,
The land would be far better off
without colonial greed.
Jinjirrie
1993
[Inspired by Robert Hughes’ master work “The Fatal Shore”, and republished to commemorate his passing over. Hughes is among the few who removed the scales from my eyes painlessly, to reveal beauty and truth.
In what has been described as a landmark case, 16 protesters against Israeli oppression and apartheid supported by the Strauss group’s Max Brenner franchise in Australia, have been cleared of the majority of charges against them. They were arrested at a protest in QV Square, Melbourne, in July last year.
Defence lawyer Rob Starry, ‘who acted for some of the accused, said the decision had wide-ranging ramifications.
“This case is really a landmark case in the annuls of the criminal justice system because what it represents is people have a right to express themselves politically.”‘
The court said when they exonerated some of those people who engaged in peaceful protest they’ve got a right to express that view.”
Mr Starry said the decision could affect similar Occupy Melbourne protests and current industrial protests including the Toll blockade.
“The Toll blockade is an industrial dispute, it should not involve the police unless there is a breach of the peace or other criminal behaviour but that has not been the case,” he said.
“Police should not get involved in political protest or industrial disputes of this nature, (protests) shouldn’t be criminalised.
“We don’t live in a totalitarian regime. This is Australia where we should be able to engage in robust debate.”
Protestor Vashti Kenway said the decision was a victory for freedom of speech.
“It’s a victory for our capacity to protest in places where corporations have previously said they controlled,” she said.
“It’s also useful for us to know that the QV management have no right to say we are not allowed to express our political opinions within that space.”
The Strauss group which owns the Max Brenner chain sponsors the Israeli Occupation Forces’ Golani and Givati brigades, responsible for war crimes and human rights abuses against Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories.
Arguing against any Zionist-organized BDS “counter” protest, Alhadeff writes: “It is important for the community to be aware that our response to BDS forms part of [a] coordinated national strategy. Furthermore, this strategy is endorsed by counterparts abroad and Israel’s Foreign Ministry.”
Alhadeff outlined this coordinated national strategy in response to BDS, stating that it “included, but is not limited to, engagement with civil society and politicians, patronage of boycotted outlets, cooperation with police, shop owners and center managers and exposure of the motives behind the BDS movement.” According to Alhadeff, Zionist policy in response to BDS should be one which seeks to “speak softly” but to also carry “a suggestion of a big stick.”’
It provides a salutary lesson to the authorities as to why police should not be engaged where people are simply exercising their democratic right of peaceful protest.
It’s a fundamental right in any tolerant and civilised democratic society.
And this episode raises the question of why scarce police resources were invoked at the behest of a large commercial interest in dispersing lawful peaceful protesters.
The management of QV should indemnify Victoria Police for the costs of this operation. It should not be borne by the general public.
The legal costs that will be ordered against Victoria Police as a result of this case should also be borne in part by the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office, as a result of its advice as to what might constitute wilful trespass or besetting of premises.”
With no Palestinian representative on the city council — since the illegal annexation of the Old City to Israel in 1967, the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem has been boycotting municipal elections
‘And, worst of all, we have lost the capacity to see how profoundly shocking the situation has become, because we have adjusted to so many inequities of so many different shapes and kinds that a moral language to evaluate this situation is slowly disappearing. This unease has no name because it is beyond “inequality,” “occupation,” or “racism.” It is about a deep and massive corrosion of the very meaning of what it means to be a citizen of Israel today. ‘
150 messengers, trained and 500 missions and 22,000 explain, three million hits the site, 300 thousand leaflets, millions of followers Btoitr, and tens of millions of radio listeners do not – Jews in the world – this is a small part from Israel propaganda, as revealed today (Monday) Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora.
The problem: All projects and many others, budgeted at 40 Million shekels only, ten and a half million dollars.
Committee chairman MK Danny Danon (Likud) said it was a scandal the state’s public budget in the world is under attack so sum – miserable. This is a comprehensive and impressive action. The firm does a lot, initiate grand projects – achievements, lack of success, but still does not get proper government backing. The budget must be increased significantly, to encourage the activities of Israel’s friends in the world – that they do not – very few.
Minister of Information and Diaspora Yuli Edelstein told the meeting that the principle of information activity is beyond activism, and more on the defensive sufficiency, advocacy by citizens, and stop apologizing. Edelstein said the firm gave more than three hundred thousand leaflets – information about Israel at Ben Gurion Airport, in English, French, Spanish, Russian and Hebrew, hydrogen Ldibiitim training to more than 22 thousand people, and 500 delegations underwent training in public relations, and that 3 million people entered to date to “explain Israel.”
The Minister presented the project “Faces of Israel”, issued more than 150 representatives of Israeli society to the world in order to tell about life in the country, from the corner of academic studies, tourism, science, culture, living together and so on. “We are fighting the ignorance that many of the world at do not know that Ethiopian Jews or Bedouins – Israel, “said Edelstein.
Program “broadcast in Israel for ever” stayed in television and radio announcers and executives from the world, with 5-7 million listeners and over, broadcasting from Israel for a week. Like – yes Edelstein revealed that Hollywood film actors organize a delegation to come to Israel to learn how to look after children with special needs, as well as office assistance support for Israel annual march in New York. The minister also revealed that the ministry is working to connect Israelis – Jewish emigrants abroad and recognize Israel and sign a huge demand for this initiative.
Edelstein said he had recently held a conference in forty countries interested to learn from Israel about the connection with their distribution, and activity center office in favor of Israel against the world’s Christian leaders. Edelstein noted the fruitful cooperation with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Tourism, the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization, “otherwise they could not carry out these projects.”
Jewish Agency Secretary Josh Schwartz also noted the cooperation emissaries, especially on campuses, and Danny Wosner, representative of Jewish Federations of North America said that the firm serves the world’s Jewish communities address. Show Melaku, IBA works, represented Israel in Ireland Several months ago, said that “We have received excellent training. The Irish do not know anything about Israel, and contrary to the image do not hate her. ”
MK Shlomo Molla (Kadima) added also – is that “I was in college in California, considered to be particularly anti-Semitic, and Cshstodntim meet with the Israelis face – to – face, not through the media, the reactions are particularly good. Amount of only $ 40 million is a miserable, in front of government offices not to use their budgets until the end “.
Plot firm CEO Ronen said at the meeting that “The office was established three years ago from nothing, today is an empire of 40 projects that only 5 percent is presented here. Are in demand all over the world but we are forced to turn them away because of lack of sufficient budget. Should at least double the budget and increase the standards. ”
The Israeli army waited for the peak of summer heat to confiscate Palestinian water tanks.
No amount of money can destroy the truth about Israel’s crimes, Danny. Instead of attempting to whitewash these unsustainable iniquities, money would be better spent ending Israel’s racist persecution and land theft, removing injustice to Palestinians and conforming with the requirements of international law.
Danon further distinguishes himself with vehement racism at a recent conference by calling for the expulsion of ‘infiltrators’ to Israel –
“Enough talk,” Danon said. “It is time for action. Deport all of the infiltrators from the state of Israel.”
Danon offered his preferred solution to the ongoing issue: Israel must “build cities for infiltrators, finish construction of the border fence (along Israel’s southern border with Egypt) and expel all the infiltrators from Israel,” he said. “Illegal infiltrators must have two modes: Deported or awaiting deportation.”
…
“Citizens of Israel have turned into refugees in their own homes, and the (African) refugees have become the permanent residents (of Israel),” Danon said.
Why Dr. Wissam Joubran from Nazareth refused to normalise Israeli oppression: ‘Participation was conditioned on an Israeli singer appearing alongside me, yet such an appearance, when in Gaza there are still bodies coming out from under the ruins and the blood of hundreds of children and women is still shouting, would not be for the goal of presenting my music and art, but to attempt and present a sparkling picture of the relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel. My response was that I am not prepared to be the laundry detergent of the state of Israel in such a ceremony.’
Professional apartheid : Doctors who receive their medical degrees from Al-Quds University, a prominent Palestinian institution of higher learning, can’t practise in Jerusalem because Israel won’t let them take the necessary licensing exam.
What Is Settler Colonialism: ‘As Israel continues to claim the Palestinian kitchen as its own, so does the United States with Native America: consuming corn, wild rice, quinoa, cranberry, cornbread and Turkey with the confidence of a national cuisine. In the United States, settler colonialism has been so complete, and so successful, that the world has forgotten that South Africa, Australia and Israel are all reproductions, all approximations of the ongoing victory back home.’
TARIQ ALI says we are witnessing in Syria a new form of re-colonisation by the West, like we have already seen in Iraq and in Libya.
Many of the people who first rose against the Assad regime in Syria have been sidelined, leaving the Syrian people with limited choices, neither of which they want: either a Western imposed regime, “composed of sundry Syrians who work for the western intelligence agencies”, or the Assad regime.
The only way forward, in the interests of all Syrians, says Ali, is negotiation and discussion. But it is now obvious that the West is not going to let that happen because they are backing the opposition groups who are against any negotiation.
How obsession with “nonviolence” harms the Palestinian cause – As Lina says: ‘Oppressed people do not and should not have to explain their oppression to their oppressor, nor tailor their resistance to the comfort of the oppressors and their supporters.’
Yet Lina is noticing that Palestinian participation and leadership is limited by the current PSCC model, despite it being effective in terms of international awareness, and is funded inadequately by Fayyad who has his own dubious neoliberal, collaborator agenda, and foreign NGOs with their agendas. So how can this really be ‘popular’ resistance? instead, it can look more like normalisation – including with Fayyad’s neoliberalism. For a popular movement there has to be mobilisation.
Leading Liberal Zionists have come out in impressive numbers calling for the boycott of settlements, but I have to warn you there is something to dread; they want you to buy Israeli products instead! They say they want to save Israel from a dangerous extremist threat. Namely, the Israeli gov’t and the BDS! Yes, they have lumped us together as two extreme versions calling for one state. Both? Extreme?
In this absurd reality BDS’s call for equality is apparently as extreme as ethnic cleansing. In what world is this convincing?
In their grand hypocrisy they want us to fortify the Green line that supposedly separates a Jewish state from a future Palestine but without ever supporting Palestinian resistance. Is it then a matter of a state of mind? If we think it, the settlements will go? What tools can we use and where are these liberal Zionists when nonviolent protestors are shot in the face with gas canisters?
They want us to be as delusional as they are. They want us to be docile. They want us
to exonerate Israel of all its past crime or God forbid, we would be accused of clinging to victimhood.
They want us to march along side the spin doctors and bleeding hearts ‘The settlers are to blame for the erosion of Israel’s democracy!’, ‘The settlers are to blame!’. ‘The settlers are to blame for the erosion of Israel’s democracy’. ‘The settlers are to blame!’.
For the destruction of a Zionist fantasy!
As if settlers exist in a vacuum. As if settlers have come from some far away planet. landed on a hill in the West Bank and without any help from congress, the Knesset or the senate, they began to build their colonies on our land.
‘The settlers are to blame!’ As if Israel was not built on the ruins of Palestinian villages long before the settlers came to the West Bank. Long before the checkpoints and the wall, long before it all, long before there was an occupation, there was a total devastation, a ruthless destruction of an entire nation.
‘The settlers are to blame!’ But as far back as 1948 villages were erased, Palestinians were massacred, to make way for the establishment of this state.
‘The settlers are to blame!’ But go on and ask this soil you tread whose ancestral flesh
has fed this earth for centuries? Whose blood runs in the sap of the olive trees? Whose stories are written between the cracks of these old stones?
‘The settlers are to blame!’ Close your eyes and search your soul. Dig deep. Those nightmares in your sleep are the voices that once filled this Arab home you have occupied with laughter. Look beneath your bed. Did they leave their slippers when they ran barefoot down the street and into exile? Did they leave behind the tea-kettle warm on the kitchen table? Before they wore an eternal label ‘refugees’!
‘The settlers are to blame.’ But who shoots the gas canisters and live bullets at the protestors in the West Bank? Who enables these settlers to steal Palestinian land?
‘The settlers are to blame.’ Who is responsible for the death of thousands in Gaza?
Was it settlers riding on their F16 fighter jets who dropped the phosphorus bombs on schools, houses and mosques? Or was it a state army, your army, wearing a uniform that supposedly represents all of Israel that killed and maimed at will?
The best part is when Liberal Zionists like Beinart suggest calling the West Bank ‘undemocratic Israel’. ‘Undemocratic’ as opposed to what? The democratic Israel on the other side of the Green line where Palestinians who survived the Nakba and hold Israeli citizenships have dozens of laws that single them out and discriminate against them?
‘The settlers are to blame!’ But how are the settlers alone responsible for the systematic racism of a state that defines all non-Jews as second-class citizens?
And pray tell, who set the Eritrean migrants’ house on fire in Jerusalem and demanded the deportation of Africans seeking asylum?
If we boycott settlements and buy Israeli goods will the Jews in Israel become more accepting of non-Jews in their neighborhoods?
Let’s put an end to this grand deviation. Settlers wouldn’t exist if not for the support of an ethnocentric nation, dedicated by any means necessary to driving out the indigenous population.
Yes, Boycott the settlements. But don’t stop at the green line because they did not.
Boycott the settlements but also boycott ethnic superiority. Boycott discrimination against Palestinians who are second-class citizens in their own country. Boycott Israel’s academic institutions for their complicity. Boycott Israel’s culture for its duplicity. Boycott Israeli industries. Boycott Israeli institutions for supporting war crimes. Boycott Israel’s apartheid policies on both sides of the green line until all of this changes and we are all free, living together Palestinians and Jews in equality.
Boycott Israel and I promise you, this day will come.
