A few days ago, I was rude enough to write to the Australian Government over the holiday period. What’s more, my email was not about cricket.

Israel rains death from the air in Gaza (Photo from Friends of the Earth Palestine)

This kind of behaviour is not encouraged down under.

It makes work for public servants when they’d rather be on the beach, like their Ministers. It may be taken as an indication of seditious intent.

Even so, in the circumstances, I thought I’d take the risk…

Here’s my email:

From: Syd Walker [mailto:......@sydwalker.info]
Sent: Monday, 29 December 2008 9:27 AM
To: Smith, Stephen (MP)
Subject: Please act now to stop Israeli mass murder!

Dear Minister

I am writing to urge you to take IMMEDIATE action to demand that Israel stops the massacre in Gaza.

There must be an immediate ceasefire. Israel is reponsible for the mass murder and must stop, forthwith.

The statistics quoted by the Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem are a month old, but give a general overview of the killing on both ‘sides’ in Palestine/Israel. I urge you to take a look.

Some 130 Israelis were killed by Palestinians between 29.9.2000-30.11.2008, the great majority being members of the armed forces. By contrast, in the same period close to 3,000 Palestinains were killed by Israelis. The ‘kill ratio’ of Palestinian:Israeli children in the hostilities is 158:1

When will the Australian Government have the decency and honesty to mention this?

I implore you to put the firmest imaginable pressure on the Israeli State to stop the carnage now.

Regards

Syd Walker
Address…

__________________________________

The first reply was not encouraging (but at least the Foriegn Affairs autoresponder has typos too!):

This Office is cuurently closed for the Christmas New Year break. The Office reopens on Monday 5 January 2009.

If your email relates to a Foreign Affairs portfolio matter and it is urgent, please telephone the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade Consular Operations Centre on (02) 6261 3305 or Toll-Free on 1300 555 135. Both are available 24 hours per day.

For general passport enquiries, you can telephone the Australian Passport Information Service on 13 12 32, again available 24 hours per day.

Stephen Smith MP
Member for Perth

But today there’s an update! (emphases added)

Dear Mr Walker

Gaza Destruction (Photo from Friends of the Earth Palestine)

Note who is ‘stongly condemned’ and who isn’t. Apparently the Australian Government has the same bigoted view of the ‘kill-ratio‘ and warped view of recent history as the Israeli Government itself.

In my follow-up email, I may be even meaner and include photos. I think I’ll ask about Australia’s ‘aid’ program too. Did we spend big on Gaza’s University, just blown to smithereens by Israel? Is it like a fund to give the Israelis target practice?

Ah. And the  ‘Road Map for Peace’. I must ask about that too. Is the Government joking?

Perhaps the job of writing this latest letter was outsourced to Tel Aviv?

I wonder also if the same letter is sent out to Zionists writing to complain that Australia isn’t supporting Israel enough Could there be another version, even more biased towards the occupier and aggressor?

I could run a test. What might a real Zionist say?

Here’s a few insights.

People often complain the Israeli-Arab conflict is too complicated to understand.

It’s true one can get lost in argument and counter-argument, especially when relatively new to the subject matter. The conflict over Palestine has been going on for over 100 years. That’s a lot of arguments! But most of them are really distractions. The key issues are not too hard to grasp.

A Terrorized Gazan Child

Unfortunately, you rarely find them presented with clarity in the mainstream media.

Diane Mason runs a blog with the witty title Lawrence of Cyberia. She also maintains Palestinian Biographies, which is well worth a visit too.

Her latest article – The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Too Complicated For Our Beautiful Minds – is a ‘must see’. Published yesterday, it’s an introduction to the topic of Israel/Palestine in crystal clear English with just enough statistics to get the main point across.

Do check out the full text. Here’s how it starts:

“There are so many words written about the “root causes” of the Arab-Israeli conflict, you might think the underlying issue is difficult to understand. But you’d be wrong. For all the mythology that interested parties want to wrap this conflict in, it’s really not difficult at all to understand the confrontation that has been going on in Palestine for more than a century now.

“All you have to do is try to imagine that what happened to Palestine happened instead here in the U.S. Then ask yourself, “What would Americans do in this position?”. And at that point, you find it miraculously stops being difficult to understand.

“The problem with this approach is that American Exceptionalism has left us barely able to imagine being in other people’s shoes. So we explain the world to ourselves through ridiculous platitudes like we’re good and they’re evil, that actually explain nothing and leave us as confused as when we started. We just don’t do empathy very well.

“But let’s try anyway. Let’s try imagining that what has been going on in Palestine for the last 100 years is going on instead here in the U.S., right now.”

And here’s how it ends (emphases added):

“…the conflict in Palestine is actually rooted in the fact that Palestinians are exactly like us.

“Palestinians do not accept that equal citizenship in their own homeland should be denied them because of their ethnic/religious background, any more than Americans would accept ethnic justifications for denying them equal citizenship in the United States. Palestinians do not accept that a population that is 96.7% Muslim and Christian should be ethnically cleansed to make way for a sectarian Jewish state, any more than we would accept that the 97.5% of Americans who happen to be not-Jewish should be ethnically cleansed to make way for a Jewish state here.

“In short, Palestinians reject and resist Zionism because they do not accept being treated in ways that we, likewise, would never accept for ourselves.

Gazans Murdered by Israeli Bombs

“This is not difficult to understand. And yet we wrap the Arab-Israeli conflict in complex, ontological constructs about “The Arab Mind”, about “Islamofascists” who “hate us for our freedoms”, and about mindless, irrational anti-Semites who hate Israel just because it’s Jewish and not because the overwhelmingly non-Jewish population there has to be destroyed in order to make it, and keep it, Jewish. Complicated existential explanations to hide the simple fact that the Palestinians are doing exactly what we would be doing if we found ourselves in their situation.

“I understand that if you’re a Zionist you have a vested interest in not understanding all this, and in persuading others that it’s really very complicated. But for the rest of us, really, how difficult is this to grasp?”

____________________________

NOTE:  The photos on this web page are from Friends of the Earth Palestine.