Peter Goers: Israel has scant regard for Australian sacrifice
Aside from its hatred of Palestinians, Israel has scant regard for Australian sacrifice
[Source: Sunday Mail, South Australia, 8 October 2016]
Israel is guns and Moses. Israel is one long persecution of Palestinians. Israeli Jewish historian lan Pappe writes: “South Africa invented apartheid. Israel perfected it.” Also: “Jewish atheists don’t believe in God but they believe God promised them Israel.”
I’m over God. Other people go on a holiday to sit on a beach. I go to Jerusalem where three people were shot by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers in the street while I was there, including one unarmed child who raised his arms and said “Allahu Akbar”– God is great. Israel’s God is greater. His people are armed.
I did sit on a beach at the Dead Sea. I did look upon Sodom without being turned into a pillar of salt. I love Jordan – Amman, Petra, Wadi Rum, Karak and Shobak crusader castles are glorious.
Jordan is a modern nation in an ancient civilisation and the people are the
most considerate people on Earth.
The Israeli/Palestinian situation is seemingly insoluble and getting worse for the lack of great leaders. I salute the forbearance of the Palestinians and commit myself afresh to their noble cause. Inshallah.
4th Australian Light Horse Brigade at Beersheva, 1917.
I wanted to see Be’er Sheva. On October 31, 1917, the Australian Light Horse – supported by New Zealand and British troops – took what was then known as Beersheba, a Turkish stronghold in the Negev Desert, in the last great cavalry charge.
It’s a hot, dusty hellhole. Modern Be’er Sheva – with its 350,000 souls – is the ugliest place I’ve ever seen. I managed to hire the world’s worst tour guide/driver. At the cost of $750, he was boorish and inept.
He couldn’t find the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and when he did, as I lay laminated wattle flowers on some Diggers’ graves, he sat on a headstone using his mobile phone.
He used Google Maps to find the Park of the Australian Soldier – which was an ego trip funded by Visy Industries founder Richard Pratt.
It’s an oasis full of Australian trees but the toilets are broken and there’s trash around the plinth of an awful statue of a lighthorseman and his horse.
The enclosed park has only one open gate - all others are locked. Why? Security. That’s the answer to everything in Israel which has been under emergency law since 1967. Every other park in Be’er Sheva is completely open.
Israeli President Shimon Peres, right, poses with Australian mulitmillionaire
Richard Pratt, who donated the Light Horse Memorial, in the Park of the
Australia Soldier, in Be’er Sheva, in 2008.
I located the old Turkish Railway Station and the monument to the Turkish dead but our guide could not find the battlefields of 1917. Nor could he find the enormous Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery on Mt Scopus, in Jerusalem. He’d never heard of it.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is failing us. It is the only point of having a Commonwealth. Its protection and presentation of war graves the sad world over has been impeccable. Not so in Be’er Sheva. Ramshackle.
The Zionists insist that the charge on Beersheba in that desert campaign of World War I precipitated the return of Israel to the Jews and the resultant illegal persecution of the Palestinians.
The Israelis pay Australia a lot of lip service, yet much needs to be done to exhume battlefields from rubbish dumps for the centenary of Beersheba next year.
The Israelis couldn’t care less about Beersheba and, if you think that’s sad, try being a Palestinian and being a prisoner in your own land.
Peter Goers can be heard weeknights on 891 ABC Adelaide
13 October 2016, Australian Jewish News: ABC host slammed over anti-Israel rant
