A most intriguing and fascinating post highlighting the machinations of this beaurocratic monster. Somewhat disappointed with the lack of The usual ad hominim attacks and venom that usually accompany your posts within minutes of posting ;) Perhaps there is nothing even the most impassioned of readers can find to dispute?

This is just another example, if I may, of the disfunctionality of a 'non representative' body of singularly inept beurocrats dictating policy and law to democratic free states.

One could go on forever with examples of this organisations ineptitude. Lybia heading the human rights arm of the organisations, IPCC espousing junk science on climate and the Ramsar agreement on wetlands etc etc.

Yes David, Australia should be concerned, whether it be the legality of the West Bank occupation or wherever an individuals life and freedom is impacted on by this organisation.

Once the dictates of history, law or science are deliberatly circumvented or ineptly ignored by an organisations with this amount of power and influence, we are all in a dangerous situation.

Shriek, moan, shudder! He's back again, the Singer, the one-man army who is trying to whitewash one of the most heinous, black crimes in the turbulent history of mankind: the taking of Palestine and giving it to probably the most racist, elitist mob of deranged religious zealots the world has ever seen.

Week after week he presents his mischievous fairy-tales about the wonders of the Jewish State and its legitimacy while the Palestinians suffer under brutal Jewish occupation, genocide, house and farm demolitions, check-points, tax-stealing, humiliation, imprisonment without trial, etc, etc, as they have done since 1948.

The Singer cares nothing for the many contrary opinions of those who oppose the cruel Jewish Regime. He just ignores them and prattles on with his fraudulent legalese and political gobbledegook.

Unfortunately, the MSM in this country tends to be pro-Israel probably because much of it is owned by Jews. If the Australian public really knew of the horrors the Palestinians have endured for more than 64 years at the hands of the Israelis, there would be no sympathy for Israel at all.

Because of Israel, we could soon have a nuclear war. They have the nuclear weapons and they certainly are deranged enough to use them!

Australia, wake up and condemn Israeli Imperialism and Occupation before we pass the point of no-return.

Oops! I was wrong :)

Dear David G,

So Rupert is Jewish?

Come on mate, I will wear an argument that the pro-Israel Jewish lobby is particularly powerful in this country as Antony Lowenstein himself has pointed out, but to claim most of the media here is owned by Jews is patently wrong and not at all helpful.

Dear Prompete,

It is indeed refreshing to encounter a Singer supporter as they seem to have been diminishing in number for quite a while now.

Most have given up on him but I have made a commitment so I'm stuck.

I'm wondering if you would be prepared to engage in a discussion about Mr Singer's article primarily in light of your statement;

“This is just another example, if I may, of the disfunctionality of a 'non representative' body of singularly inept beurocrats dictating policy and law to democratic free states.”

Isn't this precisely what the Levy committee is attempting to do?

And who is Levy? He is the only Supreme Court Judge out of the eleven to oppose the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

It is just like Abbott as PM getting 'Dissenting' Dawson, the only Justice to rule against the Mabo decision, to head a committee to decide the validity of native title in this country.

Abbott then uses the obviously biased report to allow tourist operators and developers to create freehold properties in Aboriginal lands.

Cont...

Cont...

I had written earlier about why Netanyahu did it:

Start quote;

“Purely because he wanted to be free of the admittedly slim restraints of the Sasson Report, “an official Israeli government report published on 8 March 2005 that concluded that Israeli state bodies had been discreetly diverting millions of shekels to build West Bank settlements and outposts that were illegal under Israeli law.”

The Sasson Report was “commissioned by the Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and was headed by the former head of the State Prosecution Criminal Department Talia Sasson.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasson_Report 

It basically slapped the government over the wrist for aiding and abetting the construction of settlements on private Palestinian land in the West Bank. Yet however anaemic it was it at least offered something for the Israeli NGO's such as Peace Now to fight for the return of private Palestinian properties with some small successes.

So Netanyahu whacks together this group to give him some legitimacy in ramping up settlement construction and get him around the Attorney General and recent Supreme Court rulings calling for illegal homes to be demolished. Talia Sasson had warned ““The government is not supposed to instruct the State Attorney’s Office but precisely the other way around,”

End quote.

So do you really think that the illegality under international law of Jewish settlements in the West Bank “has been dealt a crushing blow with the the recent release of the Levy Committee Report in Israel rebutting that claim.”?

Only I suspect in someone's desperate and deluded mind.

To csteele

Attacking the members of the Levy Committee or Israel's Prime Minister for establishing it - is really a waste of time and might I respectfully add - totally irrelevant.

The Committee reiterated that Israel's legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in the West Bank is to be found in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter.

The Arabs have never accepted those twin pillars of international law.

Such rejection has brought them nothing but grief - and will continue to do so until they wake up to their senses.

Yes I stand by my statement that:

"The canard - supported by countless United Nations General Assembly Resolutions - that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal in international law - has been dealt a crushing blow with the the recent release of the Levy Committee Report in Israel rebutting that claim."

You yourself - and many others - have repeated this canard on OLO as evidenced by your comment on 23 March 2011:

"Itamar is an illegal settlement deep inside the West Bank. Home to over a thousand settlers"

The Mandate and article 80 do refute that claim - as I myself have stated so often on OLO - and the Levy Report confirms that view.

In your usual way of engaging in ad hominem attacks you accuse me of having a "desperate and deluded mind."

It is very revealing to know that others - like a retired Judge of Israel's Supreme Court, a judge of the Tel Aviv District Court and the former legal advisor to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs - would be similarly regarded by you.

When you get people of this stature to back up your views - maybe I will be more prepared to pay serious attention to your opinions.

By the way - when can I get answers to those eight outstanding questions that I have put to you on about ten occasions so far??