Australian Universities Complicit With Pro-Zionist Censorship
And Genocidal Israeli Militarism
By Dr Gideon Polya
24 May, 2012
Countercurrents.org
Australian universities have allowed themselves to become soiled by association with genocidal Israeli militarism and with evidently pro-Zionist censorship by the Australian taxpayer-funded, universities-backed and academic-based web magazine The Conversation.
Australian universities and Australia 's premier research body CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization) once had a fine reputation for intellectual leadership. This has now been tarnished by association of CSIRO and a number of important universities with an academic–based web magazine The Conversation which censors informed, credentialled, anti-racist, humanitarian academic opinion and by connections of some Australian universities with military research of racist, genocidal Apartheid Israel .
Australia is a Murdochracy (Big Money buys public perception and hence votes) and a Lobbyocracy (Big Money buys public perceptions, politicians, parties, polices and votes). Accordingly The Conversation is very welcome in enabling expert opinions in a country woefully served by the grossly deficient reportage and censorship of oligopoly Mainstream media (see "Boycott Murdoch Media": https://sites.google.com/site/boycottmurdochmedia/ and “Censorship by The Age”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by-the-age and http://agecensors.blogspot.com/ ) and a woefully deficient , taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC; Australia's equivalent of the UK taxpayer-funded BBC; see “ABC Censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/abccensorship/home and “Censorship by ABC Late Night Line”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbyabclatenightlive/ ).
Unfortunately I have already encountered many instances of censorship by The Conversation of comments posted by me. It is likely that this abuse goes much further than censorship of just one widely published, 5-decade career Australian scientist. I have a resolute mantra “Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity”. I would be complicit in such censorship if I remained silent. Accordingly I have created a website “Censorship by The Conversation” (see: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by ) to systematically record such censorship in the interests of free speech, Australia , Humanity and indeed of The Conversation itself. However The Conversation responded to this systematic public record by blocking my ability to post comments.
I protested this censorship to The Conversation to no avail – the response was in effect that they were not censoring me but merely upholding “Community Standards”. Upholding “Community Standards” appears to involve censoring comments critical of the Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide being perpetrated in the post-1990, Zionist-backed US War on Muslims (12 million Muslim deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation and 20 million Muslim refugees; see “Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ) and the Palestinian Genocide perpetrated by racist, genocidal, nuclear terrorist, Zionist-run Apartheid Israel (2 million Palestinian deaths, 0.1 million violent and 1.9 million from war-imposed deprivation, plus 7 million Palestinian refugees; see “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ ).
Below is the reply I then sent to various parties involved with "The Conversation".
REPLY: " Dear etc,
Re The Australian university–backed and academic-based The Conversation's “ We have locked your account in response to your repeated violations of our Community Standards ”.
I have been collating instances in which I have been censored by The Conversation and it is clear that the common factor is my morally obligated criticism of genocidal atrocities by the US and Apartheid Israel (see “Censorship by The Conversation”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by ).
For anti-racist Jews and indeed all anti-racist humanitarians the core moral messages from the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) and from the more general WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slav, Jewish and Gypsy dead) are “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone”, “bear witness” and “zero tolerance for lying”.
However these sacred injunctions are grossly violated by the anti-Arab anti-Semitic racist Zionists running Apartheid Israel and their Western backers variously involved in the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Somali Genocide, and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 0.3 million (1967-2011), 4.6 million (1990-2012), 2.2 million (1992-2012) and 5.6 million (2001-2012), respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths totalling 0.2 million, 2.0 million, 1.3 million and 2.9 million, respectively; refugees totalling 7 million, 5-6 million, 2 million and 3-4 million, respectively, plus a further 2.5 million Pashtun refugees displaced in NW Pakistan.
All decent, anti-racist humanitarians are obliged to expose and oppose racist Zionism, Apartheid Israel, the ongoing Palestinian Genocide (2 million Palestinian untimely deaths since 1936, 0.1 million from violence, 1.9 million from war-, occupation- and expulsion-related deprivation); racist US Alliance wars and occupations (12 million Muslim war-related deaths since 1990); continuing neoconservative and racist Zionist perversion of human rights, humanitarian values and rational discourse in the Western democracies; neocon-backed ignoring of worsening climate genocide (that may kill 10 billion non-Europeans this century through unaddressed man-made climate change); and egregious, racist Zionist-promoted anti-Jewish anti-Semitism through (1) sidelining anti-racist Jews, (2) censoring anti-racist Jews, (3) egregious, false defamation of anti-racist Jews critical of Apartheid Israel as “self-hating Jews” and “anti-Semites”, and (4) falsely identifying decent, anti-racist Jews with the appalling, genocidal crimes of Apartheid Israel and the Zionist-backed US Alliance.
I am inspired by Polish hero Jan Karski (later professor at Georgetown University, Washington DC) who tried to warn a disbelieving world about the Jewish Holocaust as it was happening; by numerous outstanding anti-racist Jewish scholars from Professor Hannah Arendt to Professor Howard Zinn (see “Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/home ) ; by numerous outstanding anti-racist non-Jews from Tariq Ali, Jimmy Carter and Günter Grass to Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu (see “Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/tutu-desmond ); and by the words of outstanding Jewish American scholar Professor Jared Diamond who in his best-selling book "Collapse” (Prologue, p10, Penguin edition) enunciated the " moral principle, namely that it is morally wrong for one people to dispossess, subjugate, or exterminate another people " – an injunction grossly violated by racist Zionist (RZ)-run Apartheid Israel and its racist, genocide-committing and genocide-ignoring US Alliance backers who are complicit in the deaths of 12 million people from violence and war-imposed deprivation in the post-1990 US War on Muslims (see “Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ).
Only a dozen of my wider family survived the racist Zionist-complicit Jewish Holocaust in Hungary in 1944-1945 – the racist Zionists collaborated with the Nazis before and during the war and got Churchill to veto the Joel Brand plan to save 0.7 million Hungarian Jews. I am absolutely obliged to oppose any racism and also obliged to endorse the words of outstanding Jewish Canadian writer Naomi Klein “There is a debate among Jews - I'm a Jew by the way. The debate boils down to the question: "Never again to everyone, or never again to us?... [Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free card...There is another strain in the Jewish tradition that say[s], 'Never again to anyone”” (see Yotam Feldman, “Naomi Klein: oppose the state not the people”, Haartetz, 2 July 2007: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097058.html ).
As an anti-racist Australian I am cognizant of the humane opinion of Australia's most eminent Jewish public figure, Sir Isaac Isaacs, the first Australian-born Governor-General: “The honour of Jews throughout the world demands the renunciation of political Zionism” (Sir Isaac Isaacs, quoted by Wikipedia, ”Isaac Isaacs”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Isaacs ).
I also agree with the expert opinion of Jewish Israeli Professor Avi Shlaim (Professor of International Relations at prestigious Oxford University, UK): “ Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians … review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism - the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel 's real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination” (see Avi Shlaim, ““How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe”, Guardian, 7 January 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine ).
I will be raising this serious matter of censorship of credentialed, substantiated, documented academic opinion by an Australian university–backed and academic-based web magazine with the Board and backers of The Conversation, MPs, media and a wide audience here and abroad – it is not a good look and may well discourage overseas students from studying at the Australian universities linked with The Conversation or indeed at Australian universities in general.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya. END REPLY
There was no reply and accordingly I protested this egregious censorship by The Conversation to its CSIRO and academic institution backers. However, from numerous letters of protest sent to officials within these institutions - CSIRO, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Western Australia - I have so far after several weeks received only 3 replies, all asserting opposition to censorship but, paradoxically, upholding the “right” of The Conversation to exercise editorial discretion by censorship.
The situation becomes worse when one considers Australian universities that have military research links with the race-based, racist, genocidal, nuclear terrorist rogue state of Apartheid Israel . Dr Vacy Vlazna has written an account of these links entitled “Israeli Hawkademia in Australian Universities”, Palestinian Chronicle, 05-02-2012: http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19268 . Dr Vlazna notes that “It is Palestinian men, women, teenagers and children who are the guinea pigs of Israel 's 'battle-tested' weaponry. Israeli defense companies as well as their joint venture US/UK defense partners have subsidiaries in Australia … and have footholds in and associations with Australian universities The ZEN Entrepreneurs' Challenge is a student business planning competition run by the Entrepreneurship, Commercialization and Innovation Centre at the University of Adelaide … [connected with Israeli] Elbit Systems …The Edith Cowan University 's Security Management program is offering academic credit to delegates on completion of the 2013 “Security Fundamentals Tour of Israel designed to provide a select group of security specialists and professionals with an insight into Israel's critical infrastructure security and what continues to drive Israel to be one of the leading security technology providers”… In February, a guest speaker at Deakin University 's 7th Annual International Electromaterials Science Symposium was A/Prof. Yair Ein - Eli, He had been Director of Research and Battery Technology at Electric Fuel Ltd before joining the Department of Materials Engineering at the Technion… Each Israeli university has societies worldwide that encourage and facilitate academic and scientific exchanges and collaboration. ‘Recent exchanges organized by The Technion Society of Australia have included Technion staff at Sydney University , University of NSW , University of Newcastle , Victoria University, University of Adelaide and Australian National University .' On staff at the University of Western Sydney is a professor with Technion associations and experience in military and civilian R&D. Both Elbit and Rafael Advanced Systems (run by the Israeli Ministry for Defence) have long-standing partnerships with the hawkish Technion. In May 2008 was the launch of the AICC s inaugural WA Innovation and Business Development Mission to Israel , supported by the WA State Governments Department of Industry and Resources and coordinated by the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce (WA) Inc. (AICC). Among delegates were representatives from the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University … The Yachad Accelerated Learning Project designed to improve outcomes and address inequalities in Indigenous and Remote education was set up with the support of Melbourne and Monash Universities and The Hebrew University (Michael Federmann, the Chairman of Elbit Systems is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors of Hebrew University).
It is appropriate to recall the words of outstanding Jewish American scholar Professor Jared Diamond who in his best-selling book "Collapse” (Prologue, p10, Penguin edition) enunciated the " moral principle, namely that it is morally wrong for one people to dispossess, subjugate, or exterminate another people " – an injunction grossly violated by racist, genocidal, racist Zionist-run Apartheid Israel (2 million dead and 7 million refugees in the ongoing Palestinian Genocide) and its racist, genocide-committing and genocide-ignoring US Alliance backers (12 million dead and 20 million refugees in the Neocon American and Zionist (NAZI)-backed post-1990 US war on Muslims). However Apartheid Israel not only invades, kills, dispossesses, expels and ethnically cleanses, it also censors. Thus it is illegal in Apartheid Israel to support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and outstanding anti-racist Jewish scholars (notably Professor Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky and Richard Falk) have been banned from entering Palestine .
Conclusions.
As outlined above, various Australian universities have been soiled by association with military research by racist, genocidal nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel , specifically the University of Adelaide, Edith Cowan University, Deakin University, Sydney University, University of NSW, University of Newcastle, Victoria University, University of Adelaide, Australian National University, University of Western Sydney, University of Western Australia and Murdoch University, the University of Melbourne and Monash University.
CSIRO, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Western Australia have been soiled by being linked with the Australian taxpayer-funded, Australian universities-backed and academic-based web magazine The Conversation which has censored and blocked informed , credentialled academic opinion critical of the Apartheid Israel's Palestinian genocide and the Neocon American and Zionist (NAZI)-backed US Alliance Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide.
To be fair, there is also outrageous censorship by other Australian media in addition to that by the taxpayer-funded The Conversation from which I am blocked from, commenting (see “Censorship by The Conversation”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by ). Thus I have been regularly censored by the taxpayer-funded ABC (Australia's equivalent of the UK BBC) and indeed have been blocked from commenting on the ABC Late Night Live website (see “Censorship by ABC Late Night Live”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbyabclatenightlive/ and “ABC Censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbyabclatenightlive/ ). I am also regularly censored by The Age newspaper of Melbourne (see “Censorship by The Age”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by-the-age ). Such censorship is particularly obnoxious when it is effected by taxpayer-funded media against credentialled, informed, non-anonymous, anti-racist, humanitarian opinion (see Gideon Polya, “Australian Internet Censorship by Australian Government-funded ABC and Universities-backed The Conversation” , Countercurrents, 10 May 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya100512.htm ). And, of course, such censorship is a generality in the Neocon American and Zionist (NAZI)-beholden Mainstream media of the Western Murdochracies and Lobbyocracies (e.g. see “Censorship by the BBC”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbythebbc/ ).
Already Asian and non-European overseas students should have been put off study in Australian universities by:
(1) the high Australian dollar (this making it more expensive for them to live in Australia );
(2) race-based discrimination in visa application arrangements (Australia has a New White Australia Policy in which Whites and “Honorary Whites” such as Japanese can apply electronically while non-Whites and most Eastern Europeans must apply direct to Australian consulates using a separate form with more exacting, discriminatory conditions);
(3) race-based violence against Indian and Chinese overseas students by racist White yahoos; and
(4) several centuries of Australian racism and violence against Asians, of which the worst atrocities are exquisitely largely ignored in Australian academic histories e.g. Australia's involvement in 22 genocidal atrocities of which 5 are ongoing (see “Armenian Genocide & Australian Anzac Day”, MWC News, 25 April 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/18456-armenian-australian.html ), Australia's participation in all post-1950 US Asian wars (38 million deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation) and Australia's complicity in the 1942-1945 Bengali Holocaust in which the British deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death for strategic reasons (see “Australia's ABC censors Bengali Famine”. MWC News, 9 December 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/15391-bengali-famine.html ).
However, as outlined above, various Australian universities are soiled by association with genocidal, anti-Asian Israeli militarism and with censorship of credentialed, anti-racist, humanitarian academic opinion by The Conversation.
Censorship is utter anathema to scientists, scholars, teachers and academics because it sabotages honest and free communication. A decade ago I presented a paper to a conference on academic proprieties that addressed the issue of academic censorship and self-censorship in Australian universities (see Gideon Polya, “Current academic censorship and self-censorship in Australian universities”, Public University Journal, volume 1, Conference Supplement, “Transforming the Australia University”, Melbourne, 9-10 December 2001: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/57092/20080218-1150/www.publicuni.org/jrnl/volume/1/jpu_1_s_polya.pdf ). At the end of this detailed analysis I offered 8 “Suggestions for some partial solutions to this unacceptable situation”, the last of which was “viii. Finally, we should publicly insist that universities that constrain free speech are not fit for our children. ”
Dr Gideon Polya has been teaching science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/ bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya's huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .
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