Friday, June 20, 2014

The Good Old Days

In the good old days, there was the plain truth.

Now, in the Abbottoir, there's truth and gospel truth.

In the good old days, they were all just taxes.

Now, in the Abbottoir, they might not be taxes. They could be levies... or even... rabbits.

In the good old days, when men in uniform invaded a place and stayed, it was called occupied.

Now, in the Abbottoir, it could be disputed (preferred) or occupied (at a pinch), but Occupied, why that's judgmental at best and anti-Semitic at worst:

"The head of the Palestinian delegation to Canberra, Izzat Abdulhadi, told Guardian Australia that Bishop had explained to the [Arab/Muslim] ambassadors at Thursday's meeting that Brandis had been 'talking about occupied with a capital O as a noun and part of East Jerusalem's name, which the government did not support'. She said she was happy to say East Jerusalem was occupied with a small 'o' as a description." (Ministers set to condemn decision to call East Jerusalem 'disputed', Lenore Taylor, 19/6/14)

Oh, and in the good old days, a foreign minister knew the difference between a noun and an adjective, but now, in the Abbottoir...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Josh Freudenberg's commented on QA that everyone knew that some of the West Bank would be traded in a final settlement, so the term disputed was more appropriate than occupied.

What was annoying is that no-one suggested that, as some parts of current Israel would also be swapped, does that mean that the Australian Government will refer to'Israel' as disputed 'Mandate Palestine' until the borders are settled.

Peter D said...

Apparently Antony Loewenstein said somewhere that a deal was done where the Jewish community goes easy on the Libs with their canning of 18c, and the Libs do more hard yards pushing the zionism barrow. Which is exactly what is happening.

Anonymous said...

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4007384.htm

unilateral negotiation. aka, israeli "negotiation". so you seize and annex, and conquer and annex, and wage war and annex, but it is not annexing? Its negotiation? Its not war, its negotiation.

f the americans and the israeli version and their definition of "negotiation". and f canberra.