LEXI LANDSMAN
John Pilger
SYDNEY Peace Prize winner John Pilger launched a scathing attack on the media’s coverage of Israel during a lecture at the Sydney Opera House on Thursday night.
Speaking before a capacity audience in the concert hall, Pilger, a journalist, author and filmmaker, criticised the Australian media for its “modern propaganda”, particularly when it came to coverage of the Gaza war.
“In no other democratic country is the discussion of the brutal occupation of Palestine as limited as it is in Australia,” he said to applause. “Are we aware of the sheer scale of the crime against humanity in Gaza? Twenty nine members of one family – babies, grannies – are gunned down, blown up, buried alive, their home bulldozed.”
He urged the audience to read the Goldstone Commission Report, stressing the point that it was written by “Jewish judge” Richard Goldstone.
“Those who speak from the article of freedom are working hard to bury the United Nations report. For only one nation, Israel, has the right to exist in the Middle East, only one nation has the right to attack others, only one nation has the impunity to run a racist apartheid regime with the approval of the western world, and with the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Australia fawning over its leaders.”
Pilger also criticised United States President Barack Obama for “stepping up [George W Bush’s] wars and starting his own war in Pakistan”.
“Like Bush, [Obama] is threatening Iran, a country Hilary Clinton said she was ‘prepared to annihilate’. Iran’s crime is its independence … Iran is the only resource-rich Muslim country beyond American control. It doesn’t occupy anyone else’s land and it hasn’t attacked any country, unlike Israel, which is nuclear-armed and dominates and provides for the Middle East on America’s behalf.”
The Sydney Peace Prize is the only international peace prize awarded in Australia.
The citation for the Sydney Peace Prize refers to significant contributions to “peace with justice”, awarded to an organisation or individual “who has made significant contributions to global peace”.
Past recipients of the prize have included Professor Muhammad Yanus, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson.
Is Pilger here for the Comedy Festival or what?
He urges the media to stop the propaganda on Israel and then launches into a hate-filled propaganda rant against Israel.
I wonder if anyone in the audience stopped to think for a moment about what gins there are to the cause of peace from this man’s conduct?
As for reading the Goldstone Report, even its author now has misgivings about the way the UNHRC has handled it and how ironic it is that a previous recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize Mary Robinson, refused to have a bar of the mission that Goldstone finally undertook because of its inherent bias and the fact that its brief did not include a full and proper investigation of the role of Hamas and the thousands of rocket attacks on Israeli civilians that precipitated the Gaza War in the first place.
Pilger’s comments simply highlight what a joke the Sydney Peace Prize has become and he must be fuming that the Jewish community denied him the pre publicity and ignored him completely this time, unlike the fiasco that occurred when fellow so-called “peacenik” and suicide bomber lover Hanan Ashrawi won the prize some years back.
It must make John Pilgar feel really good to go all out in his condemnation of Israel. Thank G-d the rest of the media are not as biased or one sided.
If we look at events in isolation, (any side can be made to look bad) then yes Israel may have a case to answer. However one needs to take a broader more wide ranging look at events and circumstances.
How can a person who advocates supporting war and conflict escalation be the recipient of a Peace Prize? I guess if Yasser Arafat and Barak Obama can win the Nobel Peace Prize then anyone can.
Spot on Yakov!
According to Pilger, Israel is evil, the media is evil, Bush is evil, Obama is evil, but apparently John Pilger is a saint!
Jay is right - why even give this ‘man’ and ‘event’ publicity ?. It/he are financed by Arab money , and are cheered by Arabs and the extreme left . So why care ?
By the way , it is equally amusing to read the list of countries voting in the UN for the adoption of the “Goldstone report’ . Djibouti - Timor - Zimbabwe and the like . No reason to get excited…..