Sunday, February 2, 2014

Recognise

What a mess of contradictions is Murdoch's Australian.

On the one hand, it's solidly behind Reconciliation Australia's campaign - Recognise - to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution.

On the other, it's just as solidly behind the Israeli government campaign for Indigenous Palestinians to recognise Israel as "the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people*," as its columnist Janet Albrechtsen put it recently, which would effectively mean Palestinians abandoning their historic (and international law-backed) claims to Palestine, and giving the thumbs up to 65 years of Palestinian dispossession, exile and genocide.

To translate the latter into Australian terms, this would be tantamount to calling on Indigenous Australians to recognise non-Indigenous Australians - past, present and future - as the legitimate owners of this land and giving the thumbs up to over 200 years of Aboriginal dispossession and genocide.

[*Including Messrs Arnold Bloch and Mark Leibler of Arnold Bloch Leibler - Lawyers & Advisers, prominent Jewish supporters of Reconciliation Australia.]

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