G'day David Singer

With your special historical take on the formative forces creating Israel I'm confident you would agree with the following?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16991#299322 "Not only were Australian forces, by their WWI invasion of Beersheba, founders of the State of Israel, but Beesheba is the closest support city for Israel's nuclear weapons center at/near "Dimona" (Negev Nuclear Research Center) - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimona :

That means Australia is owed nuclear weapons (in boxes not "on the wing") from Israel whenever we need them.
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 8 January 2015"

Cheers

Pete

David, I'm sorry but a secondary account even by the Smithsonian does not "refute" anything. My comments were and are based on extensive research in contemporary accounts and reports of the incident, and in Broken Hill itself. And my comments are based on evaluation of those reports. We are not even certain now, as people were not then, of who the men are or their reasons for doing what they did, or what they did in fact do. Just one quick example: it is often claimed, and the Smithsonian account does this too, that one of the men was an icecream vendor. However, "the" icecream vendor in Broken Hill at that time (whose story is fascinating in its own right, by the way) was Charles Patel or Patell, who placed this advertisement in the Barrier Miner: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/45310069. There are many other examples I could give which cast doubt on various parts of accounts like that of the Smithsonian, some small and some less so. Most of these accounts are based on other accounts, and very rarely on a careful examination of the primary sources – so when you cite the secondary accounts as "truth", you are not actually getting an accurate picture of the events but only of the accounts of the events! Caution is called for.
Helen

Isabelberners

The Smithsonian article can hardly be characterised as a "secondary account" as it was based on the following sources:
"‘The picnic train attack‘. ABC Broken Hill, February 24, 2011; Australasian, January 16, 1915; Barrier Miner , January 1+2+3+4+5, 1915; Clarence & Richmond Examiner January 5, 1915; Northern Territory Times and Gazette, January 7, 1915; The Register, Adelaide, January 8+13, 1915; Patsy Adam Smith. Folklore of the Australian Railwaymen. Sydney. Macmillan of Australia, 1969; Christine Stevens, ‘Abdullah, Mullah (1855–1915)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed September 18, 2011; Christine Stevens. Tin Mosques and Ghantowns: A History of Afghan Camel Drivers in Australia. Sydney: Oxford University Press, 1989; War in Broken Hill. Collections Australia, accessed September 17 2011."

Would you care to

1. List your sources that indicate variations -"some small, some less" - from the Smithsonian article

2 what those variations are.

Well, it would seem that two men with an emblem of Islam fired without warning on unarmed holiday makers in a train near Broken Hill and that they murdered some of the holidaymakers.
They were subsequently shot dead/died from wounds.
It would appear to have been acowardly attack by men who were Muslims.

Or is it all a conspiracy dreamed up by the Prime Minister of the day and carried out by the secret service?
The two members of the then Secret Service were code named Aye and Seeoh.

David, if you are unfamiliar with the distinction between primary and secondary sources, there are any number of explanations freely available on the net. This is a useful one, from my old university: http://www.princeton.edu/~refdesk/primary2.htm. So: "A primary source is a document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study. These sources were present during an experience or time period and offer an inside view of a particular event." This is simply what primary sources are, it's not controversial to say this. The Smithsonian account is a secondary source, and it relies on some primary and some secondary sources in its compilation. In seeking accuracy, analysts should always go back to the primary sources. Secondary sources have their uses, but as we can see with this story, they can be like what we used to call the game of "Chinese whispers", accreting errors as they are repeated by each other. Of the sources relied upon by the Smithsonian, some would be considered primary and some secondary eg "‘The picnic train attack‘ [S]; Patsy Adam Smith. Folklore [S]; Christine Stevens, ‘Abdullah, Mullah' [S] Christine Stevens. Tin Mosques [S] War in Broken Hill. Collections Australia [S, but reproduces P documents]. The Barrier Miner is prima facie a P source, but there is much more useful stuff in the BM after 5 January. The Richmond Examiner is not really a primary source for the incident, although it could be a useful P source on contemporary attitudes to the incident, for example.
I'm sorry but I don't have the time at the moment to do unpaid labour for you or the Smithsonian to catalogue completely the errors and half-truths, but when my chapters on the event are published (later this year, fingers crossed), I would be more than happy to send you a copy, which will of course indicate sources and limitations etc. in an exhaustively scholarly manner. The chapters are concerned not only with what happened, but how evidence was constructed and in some cases manufactured. The chapters should answer fully your two demands of me.
kind wishes, Helen

Isabelberners

Up to you Isabel.

Your lecture on primary sources and secondary sources is irrelevant.

You alleged the Smithsonian article was a "secondary account" - but it is clear primary sources were relied on.

Guess we all just have to wait until your chapters hit the light of day sometime in the future to find out what primary sources you used in your account.

Until you do so - even the supposed variations "some small some less" so tantalisingly alleged by you will have to remain under wraps.

At the moment we only have your word.

Sounds like it could be a best seller if you can discredit the Smithsonian article and 100 years of perceived history.