Look at the Oz
Hello my dear Sydney Morning Herald and Age reading friends, 
Try out “The Australian” for once, it is well worth reading, if for nothing else but the fact that it is the only broad sheet in Oz which is at least “fair” to Israel. David Burchell writes about “that convenient scapegoat, Israel” in this article:
He suggests that…
“…In all likelihood 2011 will see the apogee of Western Israel-loathing, eclipsing even the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Israel’s victories over the Arab armies led to the invention of an imaginary country, the Israeli Goliath bullying the Arab David, and to the invention of an imaginary people, the saintly and unstained Palestinians, who forever lie bereft by the side of the road waiting for their Good Samaritan….”
There is “some” hope, however, that Israel will not be “wiped from the face of the earth” quite yet, according to Burchell:
“…Israeli citizens may perhaps comfort themselves with this small paradoxical thought. Just as it suits Arab governments for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to go on forever, and for the Palestinians to remain the lightning-rod for all the discontents of the region, so it would ill-suit Israel-haters for Israel actually to be wiped from the map. How, after all, could victory for Hamas bring peace in the region any closer? What would the triumphant Palestinian state look like that emerged in Israel’s place, and how could Western radicals possibly find the reserves of self-deceit necessary to stay in love with it?
And who else, when all is said and done, could provide a sufficient repository for all that fear and loathing? As Stalin well knew, the most useful conspiracy theories are those that nourish themselves in perpetuity, no matter how many accidental lives might be blighted along the way…”
Herzlichst
Rita
