30 July 2006

'PM's car pelted, mobbed by angry anti-war protesters', The Sun-Herald, Sydney



Ha ha! It's a good job none of them had screwdrivers (at least that we know of – no doubt ASIO and Channel 7 have people working through the night analysing footage, looking for the telltale flash of yellow plastic in a protestor's hand). Still, scant explanation in the article of quite why Lebanese-flag-waving citizenry might engage in the most concerted physical attack on the PM since the 2004 incicent in which he was hexed by an Aboriginal woman, apparently to no avail (yet). The article does point out that Howard had said he 'understood' why Israel is scourging Lebanon. Well, I understand too – they state of Israel is psychopathic. So too, indeed, is Australia. The article fails to mention the very real support given by the Australian state to the Israeli state, or the very real network of paranoia and imperialism in which Australia supports Israel. I obviously don't expect them to say that, but they might have dug up something to say about Howard's support for Zionism rather than paraphrase some apparently ambiguous recent statement.