RUTHFULLY YOURS

Way down at the very bottom of the Victorian Education Department’s list of plays deemed suitable for study in HSC classrooms there is Othello, which the teachers’ guide helpfully attributes to William Shakespeare. These are modern teachers we are talking about, remember, and some maybe unaware of the Bard, there being too few hours in the day to grapple with the classics when sexism, racism, gender fluidity and environmental destruction occupy so much of an educator’s time and mind. Those topics certainly rate higher places on the reading list than the tale of a Moor prone to inflicting domestic violence, his wife’s hanky and a typically treacherous white man. That may or may not be how Othello is taught these days, with or without reference to the rampant Islamophobia in the Venice of old, but in the absence of a plot summary on the study list of “texts” such a tack must be deemed a distinct possibility. We can be certain, however, that James Thurber’s depiction (above) of Act V, Scene II’s nasty business in the bedroom will not be an approved illustration.

Other plays are more fulsomely described. For example, consider the modern re-working of Dangerous Liaisons by Christopher Hampton:

This presentation of Dangerous Liaisons utilises cross-gendered performance, bouffon clowning, grotesquery and a high-camp aesthetic. Genders are flipped to emphasise the satirical nature of the text … Hampton’s dissections of sexism, sexuality and the role of gender in warfare are potent as he takes a classic text and brings a super-feminist and contemporary approach … This production acknowledges … the possibility of a post-gendered society, one where the divide between male and female is not so black and white.

Then there is Berthold Brecht’s The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui , whose central Chicago gangster is — or rather was — a burlesque of Hitler. That is no longer the case, apparently, as teachers need to alert children to the fact that the jackboots are today being worn by an entirely new threat to civilised life, conservatives:

Each scene will be its own set piece, demonstrating a particular aspect of Arturo’s rise and highlighting how that moment corresponds with the historical rise of Hitler. This production draws connections between the events of the play, Hitler’s ascension to power, and the current waves of conservative politics spreading across the western world.

Mind you, again according to the notes, this time for The Honey Bees by Caleb Lewis, capitalist depredations have left little of the world not yet ruined:

The ‘colony collapse disorder’ that provides a background for the narrative is a real environmental disaster that has been spreading across the globe since 2007, laying waste to bee populations wherever it strikes and it’s still not known why. In the play, the only country untouched is Australia. This is a vitally important story of human relationships set against a backdrop of an almost invisible worldwide catastrophe happening right now.

Once the HSC kiddies have been exposed to the general rottenness of the West, the same West which hires so many theatre teachers, there is Tales of a City by the Sea by Samah Sabawi. Set in Gaza, it is said to depict the lives and loves of Palestinians who must exist with the thought that a Zionist bomb might come down the chimney at a moment’s notice.

Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, and an expert on Middle East conflicts, discusses what the Palestinian leadership really wants.http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/

The Middle East has been inhabited by Jews and then Christians for nearly three thousand years; until the seventh century, Muslims did not even exist.

Many Christians in Arab countries and in Palestinian Authority (PA), without a state or anyone else to support them, are still behaving as dhimmis, paying lip service to Muslim Arab “lords” in exchange for protection in their original homelands.

The Palestinians plan activities, pay salaries and fund anti-Israeli Christian dhimmi organizations, in order to make Western Christians believe in the “Palestinian cause” — by which they mean the establishment of another Arab-Islamic dictatorship state with no human rights in it.

Coexistence is not the issue for Christians here, but rather fear for their own existence — based on the ruthless lack of freedom under the PA, as in all Arab states.

Christians in Holy Land, Judea and Samaria — what today is called the West Bank or the Palestinian Authority (PA) — are, with the Jews and assorted Arabs, the indigenous people of the land. The region has been inhabited by Jews and then Christians for nearly three thousand years; until the seventh century, Muslims did not even exist.

After the conquest of Jerusalem by Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula in 637 AD, the Jews and early followers of Christianity were forced either to convert to Islam or accept the rule of sharia (Islamic religious law) under the Islamic Caliphate, with its dhimmi laws designed to remind you that you are inferior. In Islam, dhimmis are non-Muslims — and therefore second-class, barely tolerated residents — who live under separate, harsher, laws and have to pay protection money (a “tax” called the jizya) to safeguard their lives and property.

Since the end of WW2, about 100 million refugees from Europe, Asia and Africa have been integrated into their host countries, unlike the Palestinian Arab refugees, who have been sacrificed by their leadership on the altar of delegitimizing Israel. According to General Alexander Galloway, the UNRWA Director in Jordan, as recounted at a May 25, 1953 hearing of the Near East Senate Subcommittee: “The Arabs states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.”

Jordan was the only Arab country accepting the January 26, 1952 UN Resolution #413 (a 3-year-$200MN plan proposed by the UN Secretary General, Dag Hammerskjold) to integrate Palestinian refugees into their host Arab countries. UN Secretary General, Trygve Lie said on January 3, 1950: The refugees will lead an independent life in the countries which shelter them…. The refugees will no longer be maintained by an international organization….”

Dr. Elfan Rees, an advisor on refugees to the World Council of Churches, contended that due to Arab deception and pressure “The UN Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) is feeding the dead and non-refugees (NY Post, June 11, 1959).”

UNRWA was established on December 8, 1949 as a temporary, 2-3-year relief agency, but became permanent, the largest UN agency, overstaffed, featuring a $1 BN pension fund, and used as a dagger aimed at Israel.

This week, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a deal with an Israeli opposition party to expand his parliamentary majority from one to six — a substantial victory for the stability of the government. Unlike Netanyahu’s dominant Likud party, the new coalition party — called “Yisrael Beiteinu,” which means “Israel Is Our Home” — supports a two-state solution as part of its platform. Surely the Obama administration, which has made a two-state solution a singular focus of its Israel policy, welcomed the news as a major step toward its long-term vision for peace in the Middle East?

No, it didn’t. Through a State Department spokesman, the administration said the new coalition deal “raises legitimate questions” about the Israeli government’s commitment to a two-state solution, adding that, “ultimately, we’re going to judge this government based on its actions.”

The spokesman in question, a Mr. Mark Toner, also said that the administration “had seen reports from Israel describing [the new government] as the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history.” What has Yisrael Beiteinu done to earn so abhorrent a reputation? (I assume that the comment was an attempt to link Israel’s new coalition government with Europe’s recent boom of successful far-right and neo-fascist populist parties.)

When Yisrael Beiteinu published its platform a few years ago — it’s a relatively new party — there was an outcry that it wanted to strip Israeli Arabs of their citizenship. The allegation circulated through the European and Arab popular press, and made it all the way up the media chain to CBS News (which ran an absurdly misleading piece on the subject).

If stepped-up spending on schools actually produced better results, as a self-serving educational establishment never tires of claiming, Australia’s students would be among the world’s best and brightest. Instead, performance levels aren’t just dropping, they’re plummeting
Is spending more the best way to raise standards and to improve Australia’s education system? Based on the ALP’s election promise to throw $37.3 billion at school education over the years 2015-16 to 2025-26 – including $4.5 billion to fund the final two years of the mythical Gonski funding model – the answer is ‘yes’.

Even though the nation is facing a fiscal debt tsunami and the ALP’s record in delivering education promises is abysmal, Bill Shorten boasts that if the ALP forms government the non-existent cash will flow like rivers of gold. Ignored, in relation to advanced economies like Australia and as argued by the OECD’ Universal Basic Skills report is that higher spending doesn’t guarantee stronger standards.

Authors of the report, Ludger Woessmann and Eric Hanushek, argue “in many countries that invest at least USD 50,000 per student between the age of 6 and 15 – and that include all high income and many middle income countries – the data no longer show a relationship between spending and the quality of learning outcomes.”

A second OECD report, titled PISA Low Performing Students, makes the same point when it concludes:

“Despite the conventional wisdom that higher investment leads to greater gains, there is no clear evidence that increasing public spending on education guarantees better student performance once a minimum level of expenditure is reached.”

As noted by the ALP member for Fraser, Andrew Leigh, when an academic at the ANU, notwithstanding the additional billions spent on education in Australia over the last 30 to 40 years, literacy and numeracy levels, on the whole, have either flat-lined or gone backwards. Given the consensus that throwing additional billions at education is not the solution the question remains: what can be done to improve educational outcomes, both in terms of equity and improved standards? One approach, exemplified by the ACER’s Geoff Masters in his recent paper Five Challenges in Australian School Education, argues that if Australia is to be in the top five countries in reading, mathematics and science by 2025 then the strategies he recommends must be implemented. These involve: better resourcing low socioeconomic status (SES) students and reducing Australia’s long tail of underachieving students (similar arguments are put by the Julia Gillard inspired Gonski funding report); ensuring that pre-school children are school ready; only accepting top performers into teacher training and adopting a 21st century curriculum.

Two wars today are being waged against Jewish students on American university campuses. One is substantive, the other is institutional. The plight of the Jews at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island is emblematic of both.

The purpose of the substantive war is to deny Jews their freedom as Jews. As the guarantor of Jewish freedom, Israel is the subject of a systematic, multidimensional assault, carried out everywhere on campuses.

On a growing number of campuses in the United States, the only Jews who can safely express their views on Israel are those who champion Israel’s destruction.

Those who support Israel are subjected to continuous harassment by their fellow students.

The substantive battle is being led by Students for Justice in Palestine. SJP is a phantom organization with no national organization. As Jonathan Schanzer from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies testified before the US Congress last month, it is directed by former officials from non-profits including the Holy Foundation, KindHearts and the Islamic Association for Palestine that were forced to shut down after they were implicated in financing terrorist groups including Hamas and al-Qaida.

A professor at Santa Monica College took a group of students on an “EcoSexual Sextravaganza” trip earlier this month, during which they “married the ocean” and were encouraged to “consummate” that marriage.

Why? Well, as one of its organizers, a professor named Amber Katherine, told Campus Reform, it was to get students to love the environment more through “exocentric passion and even lust.”

Oh, right. Duh.

The leaders of the trip were UC–Santa Cruz professor Elizabeth Stephens and pornographic actress/writer/sex educator Annie Sprinkle — both of whom are “the effective leaders of the ecosexual movement,” according to a writeup on the event in the school’s student newspaper, the Corsair.

Yeah, that’s right — “ecosexual movement.” This is an actual movement, and, not wanting to be behind the fray, SMC has its own Ecosexual Club.

Its president, Diego Martinez, told The Corsair that this was actually his second marriage to the ocean:

“It was actually our second marriage so it was kind of like renewing my vows for me,” Marquez said.

The students were specifically instructed to think of this marriage as one involving sex, and encouraged to “consummate” the marriage and “make love to the water” by sticking parts of their bodies into it, according to Campus Reform.

According to the Corsair, the attendees were handed plastic rings and gave their own personal vows to the sea before Sprinkle stated, “With this ring, I thee wed, and bestow upon the sea, the treasures of my mind, heart and hands.” Stephens added, “As well as our body and soul,” and Sprinkle concluded, “And with that, I now pronounce you one with the sea” — officially making all of the participants married to the sea, apparently.

[Israel’s] security advantage means cooperation with moderate nations…our partners could gain very nice inputs. And there’s also the economic sphere. I am convinced that one day, we’ll have embassies in Riyadh, in Kuwait, in the Gulf States and other places. The combination of our initiative, technology and knowledge with their tremendous financial reserves can together change the world.

Who said that? Shimon Peres, Israel’s premier “peace” exponent over the past quarter-century? Isaac Herzog, current leader of Israel’s left-wing opposition?

No, the man who said that a year and a half ago was Avigdor Lieberman—Israel’s newly sworn-in, much-reviled defense minister.

The New York Times has recoiled in horror at this development. It bemoans Lieberman’s “ultranationalist positions” and says his “appointment would make a mockery of any possible Israeli overtures to the Palestinians.”

The State Department, too, is unhappy. In what The Times of Israel calls a “rare comment on the internal politics of a US ally”—rare, that is, except in the case of Israel, which the State Department raps publicly with numbing frequency—spokesman Mark Toner said Washington had “seen reports from Israel describing it as the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history…. This raises legitimate questions about the direction it may be headed in.”

As for the abovementioned Herzog, he exemplified the Israeli left-wing lamentations with: “I’m sorry Netanyahu chose to blink and move the leadership helm in an extremist direction. The citizens of Israel should be concerned about a right-wing coalition that will lead Israel to dangerous places.”

It’s reminiscent of when, back in 2001, Ariel Sharon took the helm as prime minister. Sharon, of course, was then a demonic figure for the Israeli left, and viewed with much trepidation abroad.

Yet it was Sharon who, four years later, ended up taking the dovish step—which these days appears to be proving itself—of pulling Israel out of Gaza. How could that have been?

It could be because—as anyone who bothered looking at the facts, and regarded Sharon as a complex human being rather than a demon, could see—his record was actually far from monolithically hawkish. He had come out in favor of his predecessor, Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s, withdrawal from Lebanon (2000). Before that, as foreign minister in Netanyahu’s first government (1996-1999), Sharon had gotten along well with Jordan’s King Hussein and succeeded in smoothing out an Israeli-Jordanian crisis.

There are certain things those who “know and understand the world” purport to know and understand. These things are the seeds for most opinion journalism and “news” reporting in the current era.

The perils of climate change are certainly near the top for the informed commentariat, despite the fact that most people, certainly most Americans, rate this a virtual nonissue, not even among their top 10 issues of concern. The planet may have experienced an average temperature increase of one degree centigrade or less over the last 165 years since the start of the industrial revolution. But supposedly, according to the media, catastrophe is at hand.

The need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is another one of those “big” stories that are never far from the news lead, on which the groupthink consensus is never challenged. This week, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman managed in one column to repeat pretty much every accepted wisdom about Israel today that counts as opinion journalism among the “well informed.” This is no particular achievement for Friedman, who has been recycling his columns on Israel for decades, always with the same sage advice for Israel, a country he is trying to save from itself.

According to Friedman, the government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is destroying Israel by building settlements in the West Bank and by including ministers who happen to represent segments of the population that agree with Netanyahu on security issues. Netanyahu has shifted Israel hard to the right and is thereby closing off chances for peace with the Palestinians, Friedman claims. In time, he adds, the window to achieve a two-state solution will close (as it has presumably closed after every prior unsuccessful peace processing period, until it reopened with the next one).