Australian Jewish News reports:
CLAIMS from Malcom Fraser (pictured) that Israel deliberately bombed the USS Liberty in June 1967 is a “mad, demented conspiracy theory”, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) national chairman Mark Leibler said this week.
The former prime minister made the assertion while promoting his new book Dangerous Allies during an interview with ABC Radio Melbourne broadcaster Jon Faine last Friday, during which he also said former foreign minister Bob Carr was “absolutely correct” in his view that the pro-Israel lobby wielded too much power.
“Israel years ago, during one of the wars, killed 30 or 40 Americans on a spy ship in the Western Mediterranean,” Fraser told Faine.
“The Americans tried to cover it up. It wasn’t a mistake. It was deliberate.”
When asked on what he based the claim, Fraser said: “Information I have. I am not going to tell you the source.”
Asked by Faine if he agreed that “the pro-Israel and in particular Jewish community lobby in Australia wielded too much power”, Fraser responded, “They certainly do.”
When Faine suggested other religious, ethnic and communal groups, like the Italian community, also lobbied the government, Fraser said, “I don’t think the Italian community, just to take one example, try to get us to follow any particular policies in relation to Italy. And that’s the difference … The Jewish community seek to get Australia to support policies as defined by Israel.”
What’s going on here? I don’t think Malcolm Fraser has inside information on the 1967 accidental Israeli attack on an American ship, but like Jimmy Carter, Fraser is less concerned with political correctness as he ages and he wants to speak his mind. I suspect that while in political office, these two leaders had to bend more to Jewish interests and to Jewish money than they liked, and now they are old and ticked off at a tiny minority who they believe exert enormous influence in their countries to shape policies in ways not always good for the goyim.
Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid has been controversial not just for its puzzling lack of punctuation (Isn’t the title missing a colon and a comma?) but for its provocative title.
When I heard it was being furiously denounced for anti-Semitism by all the usual suspects, I hoped that meant that the 82-year-old Carter had reached that highly entertaining stage of the Presidential life cycle identified in John Stewart’s America (The Book) as “The President as Angry Coot.” I was looking forward to another Plain Speaking, Merle Miller’s bestselling 1974 collection of the aged Harry Truman’s fascinating fulminations.
Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, however, turns out to be blandly suave, a reasonable and readable quick introduction to the well-known problems besetting the Holy Land, although hardly the final word on this convoluted and endlessly contentious subject.
The main evidence for Carter having given in to the cranky pleasures of Elderly Tourette’s Syndrome is his use of the A-Word in his title, which has given the Neocon Establishment fits. That Carter’s 1978 Camp David Accords have—by sidelining Egypt in subsequent Arab-Israeli tussles—assured the Jewish State of regional military supremacy means nothing to them.
The Soweto-like conditions imposed by Israel on the West Bank might well remind disinterested observers of the old South African regime. Many Israelis themselves are sick of being drafted to perform, in effect, outdoor prison guard duties in the Occupied Territories.
Carter somewhat underestimates Palestinian terrorism as a justification for Israeli oppression in the name of security. But, he might well ask, are the Israeli Army checkpoints all over the West Bank to protect Israel proper—or merely the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which the U.S. government (officially, anyway) agrees with the rest of the world are illegal?
