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The Forum > Article Comments > Is Carr's Lakemba Mosque declaration policy on the run? > Comments

Is Carr's Lakemba Mosque declaration policy on the run? : Comments

By David Singer, published 19/8/2013

If Bob Carr's legal advice on West Bank settlement had come from the A-G rather than DFAT it might have been correct.

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The bumbling and unimpressive Carr made a serious mistake in choosing the Mosque,the most revered of places, in which to make his announcement,as this can only give the strong impression of friendship with and favoring one side only.In other words-bias!
This type of comment must be made in a neutral venue.
Several conclusions can be made from this;
He personally sides with the Palestinians .
Labor is so desperate for votes that anything goes
He made a stupid blunder consistent with his poor performance within his portfolio.
Probably all apply.

As a senior cabinet member,he must be aware that he has a duty of at least seeming impartiality and his actions demand a serious reprimand from Rudd.
Posted by mik, Monday, 19 August 2013 12:11:31 PM
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Labour has history when it comes to jettisoning any 'moral' stand it espouses at any given time for any given reason.
Pandering to the 'rent seekers', as identified by the leftoid chattering classes, is standard fare for this crowd when punting for votes.
The fact that Carr disregards international law in a 'thought bubble' policy statement is not the least bit surprising. Seeking to implement the 'Malasian' solution for asylum seekers, disregarding international convention/agreements and even Australian law is nothing to this crowd.
I await a response to the 4 questions asked.
Posted by Prompete, Monday, 19 August 2013 3:10:27 PM
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Carr is to be congratulated for standing up for the Palestinians.

So few Australian politicians do because most are mindless apologists for the State of Israel, one of the most heinous rogue nations the world has ever seen (aside from America)!

Singer's attack on Carr should be treated with scorn and contempt. Singer hates anyone who sides with the Palestinians and will go to any length to pull them down or discredit them.

Singer's values are entirely misplaced. He champions the bad guys and tramples all over the Palestinian people: men, women, and children, that Israel constantly mistreats and brutalizes and humiliates and kills.

It is time the world united and freed the Palestinians, give the Jews in Israel a real taste of their own medicine.
Posted by David G, Monday, 19 August 2013 5:24:56 PM
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Sharp criticism from ECAJ, ZFA, AIJAC and Julie Bishop indeed. Oh dear, we should be surprised and shocked and perhaps scared. What would you expect from these organisations? Incidentally did Jewish Voice for Peace have any comment?

As for Julie Bishop – she was the one who accused her own country of falsifying foreign passports in her spirited defence of Israel when they were accused of falsifying Australian passports in aid of extra judicial killings.

Jews may have the right to live in the West Bank by some interpretations of the law, but that does not mean taking over the land completely from its rightful owners i.e. those who have lived there for 1000 years.

This issue is not about Labour buying votes before an election, it is about social justice and about anti-racism and anti-apartheid and anti-bullying by a well armed force against an indigenous defenceless people.

You’re pulling a long bow David to suggest that Bob Carr’s remarks have upset many voters. I am aware of huge numbers who were pleased by his support of the Palestinians against their struggle to retain their homes. Your assertion that Jews have any biblical, historic or legal right to Palestine is an even longer bow. Read the learned works of Jewish academics.
Posted by Stan1, Tuesday, 20 August 2013 8:23:38 PM
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#To David G

My article questions whether the Labor Party had in fact adopted its policy on Jewish settlement in the West Bank prior to that policy being announced on the steps of the Lakemba mosque by Senator Carr.

Additionally Senator Carr has fitted Mr Rudd as personally endorsing that policy - and I am not aware of Rudd ever having said that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal in international law and must cease.

Carr certainly has said this on a number of prior occasions - but that is an entirely different matter to stating it is the policy of the Australian Government and the Prime Minister.

Carr's words are clear and unequivocal:

"That is the position, of Kevin Rudd, the position of the Federal Labor Government, and we don't make apologies for it."

Rudd so far has remained silent on whether he and the Labor Party adopted a policy that Jews have no legal right to live in the West Bank - and when that policy was adopted.

Why?

Clear up the confusion that Carr's Lakemba Mosque Declaration created and let Rudd tell us when he personally and the Labor Party adopted this anti-Jewish policy.

That should be reasonably easy to do.

A copy of the policy should be easily capable of being produced and the date when it was adopted made public
Posted by david singer, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 1:04:40 PM
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To Stan1

You erroneously state:
"Jews may have the right to live in the West Bank by some interpretations of the law, but that does not mean taking over the land completely from its rightful owners i.e. those who have lived there for 1000 years."

You are obviously unaware that the West Bank is divided into three zones - Areas A,B and C

Areas A and B make up roughly 38 percent of the West Bank and contain 96% of the Arab population of the West Bank - whose daily lives are entirely controlled by the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was wound up in January 2013.

The PLO has total security control in Area A and shares security control with Israel in Area B.

Approximately 62 percent of the area of the West Bank is in Area C, where Israel retains total civil and security control.

Only about 4%-5% of the total Arab population of the West Bank live in Area C.

The majority of Jewish settlements are in Area C and some in area B. There are none in area A.

What do you mean by the term "rightful owners"?

The West Bank is no man's land - under the sovereignty of no-one - and has had that status since Great Britain relinquished its role as Mandatory in 1948.

The West Bank Arabs chose to reunify the West Bank with Transjordan in 1950 and name the new entity "Jordan" - a situation that existed until the West Bank was lost to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. Only two countries recognized such unification.

Jews lived in the West Bank too - from biblical times until they were expelled in 1948 - only to return again in 1967.

The West Bank is part of the area in which the Jewish National Home was legally sanctioned to be reconstituted pursuant to article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter. That is still the position in 2013.

One line throw aways designed to deceive and mislead are to be deplored.
Posted by david singer, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 2:05:02 PM
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The Zionists have been lying to Mr Singer again. Carr hasn't stated any new policy. Australia has always, along with the rest of the world, accepted that the creeping annexation of the rest of Palestine is illegal.

The Article 49 to which Mr Singer refers makes the de facto West Bank grab by the Zionists so clearly illegal that even their American handlers recognise this fact though they try to weasel out by the term “illegitimate”. A declaration by a bunch of foreign colonialists at San Remo or an unsuccessful plea to EU by some lawyers to brush Article 49 aside can’t undo Article 49’s clear statement[1] of international law – a statement accepted by every real nation in the world except Costa Rica.

To grease their way out of their criminality the Zionists fall back on legalisms. They quibble about definitions, about “special circumstances” (Jews are special, promised two homelands each, remember), about jurisdiction, about what are really laws and not something else etc. etc., and while I was researching this garbage a very creepy memory was lurking just below the surface. The Holocaust. The Eichmann trial. The disgusting Dr Robert Servatius, his attorney. Read his defence strategy [2] never mind that the offender was guilty as hell – the trial was supposedly illegal, the judge biased, the jurisdiction flawed. Israel not a state when the murders were going on, “it vos orders”. I still remember being aghast at the media reports – how could anybody DARE defile justice like that? And yet seeing the Zionists brazenly defending their defiance[3] of the Geneva Convention[1] to grab more and more of Palestine, one could be reading Servatius all over again.

[1] http://www.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/380-600056 states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
[2] http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/eichmanntrial.html
[3] e.g. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-illegal-settlements-myth/
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 22 August 2013 12:24:02 AM
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#Emperor Julian

You make this claim:

"The Zionists have been lying to Mr Singer again. Carr hasn't stated any new policy. Australia has always, along with the rest of the world, accepted that the creeping annexation of the rest of Palestine is illegal."

Please specify when Australia adopted the policy you claim.

Please indicate:

1. Which Australian Government or Governments

2. On what dates

3. A reference to any document setting out the policy you claim that was actually adopted.

Vague, generalised and unsubstantiated statements need to be backed up with solid evidence.

It is my firm belief you have none.
Posted by david singer, Thursday, 22 August 2013 10:29:58 AM
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To Mr Singer: I am pleased to point out that I am not a lawyer and therefore am more concerned with truth than with legalisms that avoid it (like requiring specifics of which Australian Government adopted what policy and recorded it where, before accepting that illegal actually means illegal). However:

1. Geneva convention four article 49 Clause 6 is part of the Geneva Conventions.

2. Australia ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1958 [1]
http://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/vwTreatiesByCountrySelected.xsp?xp_countrySelected=AU

3. The wording of Article 4(6) specifically proscribes annexing occupied territory for Lebensraum [2].

4. Australian policies are to respect laws which it has ratified (we don't claim to be racially "special").

5. This is why it is Australian policy to accept that the piecemeal annexation of the West Bank is illegal. Failing to proclaim it is not failure to accept and recognise it. Carr referred to it but that doesn't mean any departure from what has always been our policy as a law-abiding country. He should have foreseen that the Zionists, intent on ducking the truth, would latch on to the venue he chose.

All this is so blindingly obvious that it shouldn't have to be spelled out.

[1] http://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/vwTreatiesByCountrySelected.xsp?xp_countrySelected=AU
[2] http://www.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/380-600056 states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 22 August 2013 2:29:17 PM
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#To Emperor Julian

As I suspected - a load of codswallop. Your version of "truth" has nothing to do with your claim that "Australia has always, along with the rest of the world, accepted that the creeping annexation of the rest of Palestine is illegal."

Even Carr did not go that far when he tried to ambush Rudd and the current Government into embracing a policy that denied Jews had the legal right to live in the West Bank.

Rudd has been strangely silent so far.

Maybe he has become completely tongue tied at Carr's slick way of "pulling the rabbit out of the hat" - in failing to immediately disavow or confirm Carr's Lakemba Mosque Declaration.

Gosh - why is Rudd taking so long to tell the voters - "The Minister's declaration accurately reflects my view and Labor Party policy which was adopted on [ ]" or conversely - "the views expressed by the Minister on the steps of the Lakemba Mosque were his own personal views and neither I nor the Labor Party has yet endorsed his remarks as representing Labor Party policy."

Rudd needs to come clean - and very soon.
Posted by david singer, Thursday, 22 August 2013 3:59:04 PM
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Mr Singer, read these words slowly, one at a time. After each word pause and think about what it means.

"The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies"

Then think about the whole sentence means. It's not codswallop. The whole world has signed up to it. Even - in 1951 - by the settlers who assume they're above having to conform to international law because they think they're God's chosen. Carr was foolish to express a belief that the Zionist enclave deserved to exist, and impolitic to choose a mosque in which to say Australia agreed with the rest of the world about the enclave's illegal expansion, but if taking a stand for law already taken by the rest of the world becomes an election issue it will start a public debate that needs to be had.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 22 August 2013 6:15:09 PM
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#Emperor Julian

You continue to fail to provide any evidence to support your following claim:

"Australia has always, along with the rest of the world, accepted that the creeping annexation of the rest of Palestine is illegal."

If you want to have another try at attempting the impossible - please feel free to do so.

Now you add:

"Carr was foolish to express a belief that the Zionist enclave deserved to exist,"

Why was Carr foolish to do so?
Posted by david singer, Friday, 23 August 2013 2:03:25 PM
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Emperor, I beseech you to purchase one house brick. Write the name David on it and, in the future, address all your Singer-directed comments to the brick.

This will save you lots of time safe in the knowledge that you will have much more success in influencing the mind of the brick than the mind of the Singer!
Posted by David G, Friday, 23 August 2013 2:59:34 PM
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I hear you, DavidG. Mr Singer's mind is already captive and beyond engagement. I can see also that he uses the troll technique of demanding answers to nonsense questions until answering will put you in breach of even the very generous number of posts OLO allows, and that he has to earn his quota of Hasbara points. I'm at my limit now and will answer him before everyone's eyes have glazed over.

*Evidence that Australia has always, along with the rest of the world, accepted that the creeping annexation of the rest of Palestine is illegal? Once more: Has ratified Geneva Conventions. These prohibit occupier transferring its population to occupied territory. This applies no matter how much the Zionists wriggle with "Zones A, B and C" or with any other legalistic rubbish worthy of the horrible Dr Servatius. The current settlements in breach stand out like a pox in the map shown for example at
http://www.bobmay.info/images/westbanksettlementsmap.jpg

*Why was Carr foolish to express a belief that the Zionist enclave deserved to exist? Because race doesn't entitle anyone to a spare "homeland" at the expense of those who belong there by birthright whether directly or by demonstrable descent from identifiable individuals born there and exiled in breach of GC4 Article 49 Clause 1.

If the racists want to try to justify themselves with Servatius-style obfuscation in a public debate, they will lose further ground.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Friday, 23 August 2013 5:19:41 PM
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#To Emperor Julian

Take David G's advice and talk to a brick. It will certainly agree with everything you say.

This will spare me asking you the same question over and over that you continue to refuse to answer.

To again refresh your memory - you stated:

"Australia has always, along with the rest of the world, accepted that the creeping annexation of the rest of Palestine is illegal."

My question to you was:

"Please specify when Australia adopted the policy you claim.

Please indicate:

1. Which Australian Government or Governments

2. On what dates

3. A reference to any document setting out the policy you claim that was actually adopted."

If you can't answer it Emperor- then get one of your manservants or maidservants to do so.

Perhaps you should also talk to Bob Carr who you obviously consider is as thick as a brick and tell him what a fool he is for saying:
"I've spoken to the Palestinian leadership, and we support their aspirations to have a Palestinian state in the context of a Middle East of peace. And that means respect for the right of Israel to exist."

Give him your reasons and be sure to run for cover when he throws the proverbial brick at you - that is if he is able to ascertain your real identity and coax you out from under your ugly cloak of anonymity.

Methinks the Emperor has no clothes.
Posted by david singer, Saturday, 24 August 2013 10:33:46 PM
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To Mr Singer: As you have yet again sought a repetition of what I have written several times already, I shall do so a FINAL time, although this may be automatically deleted by my exceeding my allowance answering your repeated denialist questions. When Australia, along with practically the entire world, ratified the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) it was ratifying the statement that it is illegal (ILLEGAL, get it?) for an occupier to transfer its own nationals into territory it occupies. This means the creeping annexation of Palestine, shown plainly by the obscenity in the map at http://www.bobmay.info/images/westbanksettlementsmap.jpg , was and is ILLEGAL and Australian policy expressed in the ratification by the Menzies government in 1958 (my “1951” was wrong)of GCIV and never disavowed held it to be so. It remains.

Neither Bob Carr nor I claimed that Australian policy accepted that the Nakba was and is also illegal, and is so under GCIV Art. 49(1). This policy failure is more a recognition of the residual influence of the racist Israel lobby than of law.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Sunday, 25 August 2013 2:29:55 AM
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To Emperor Julian

Thank goodness you have indicated this was your FiINAL attempt to answer my question in relation to a statement made by you that you have been unable to justify.

Repeating the same inane and irrelevant rubbish over and over again was getting very tedious.

Perhaps you can redeem yourself by getting Bob Carr to state he is completely in agreement with your latest whopper:

"Neither Bob Carr nor I claimed that Australian policy accepted that the Nakba was and is also illegal, and is so under GCIV Art. 49(1). This policy failure is more a recognition of the residual influence of the racist Israel lobby than of law."

When you get Bob Carr's reply - please post it here.
Posted by david singer, Sunday, 25 August 2013 9:28:42 AM
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