by Dr. Jim Saleam, November 2006 (edited March 2007)
Replying to a piece written by Danny Ben-Moshe, one directed at the Australian nationalists – and at this writer personally – is no simple matter. I assessed his speech The Far-Right and the 2005 Cronulla Riots In Sydney, given at the Inter-Faith Centre at Griffith University in March this year. I went back to first principles.
It is necessary to understand the speaker. Ben-Moshe is a mover in the Australian Zionist camp and with him comes its agenda. To disentangle his story-telling is like peeling back an onion. One peels and peels and even then – the truth may never be found. Yet, I must start somewhere and just as Ben-Moshe sets up his biography of me and his historiography (sic) of the Australian Extreme Right (sic), so I must do unto him.
For some years, Danny Ben-Moshe was an operator and intellectual force in the Australian ‘Anti-Defamation Commission’ (ADC). To the uninitiated, a ‘Commission’ sounds like a government agency, but the ADC was merely an incorporated body springing out of the Australian Jewish community and one of the political defence agencies of Zionism. In one narrow sense, it was a ‘government’ organ, a small part of the Australian State power, a focus where that smaller segment of the political class which rests in the organized Zionist section of Australian Jewry, plays a role in articulating its contribution to State ideology and imposing the liberal State’s community-ideological-discipline upon us all. The ADC would specialise in smears of the ‘Right’, styled as briefings for politicians and media and in setting out official versions of history and events (see its On Line bulletin). It would stigmatise the ‘Right’ organizations as neo-nazis, white supremacists and hatemongers, whose driving core idea is to hate – Jews. It would ensure too, that any criticism of Israel from any quarter, was placed under the microscope and rancorously assailed. In this way, information is passed through the prism of a purpose and truth is ‘manufactured’ as convenience.
I note that although Ben-Moshe has a doctorate in politics, when the matters of Israel and the Zionist interest come to the fore, any standard of academic honesty goes out the door. There is simply, no attempt at balance, or anything else. When Ben-Moshe recorded in his article that I too was academically equiped as he is, no reference to any argument advanced by me in the academic setting, is permitted. That is reasonably because his pigeon-holing of me (it seems I am a target) and Australian nationalism, means that we must never escape our constraints, a matter to which I will return (as below). Essentially therefore, I will reply to Ben-Moshe’s text this way: it is a script and therefore a propaganda declaration in the counter-war to the recent efforts of Australian nationalists to regroup and resume the offensive.
In order to get this tale-weaving from Danny Ben-Moshe into perspective, I thought that I should highlight some paragraphs from his article (published on this Site) and answer them. This piecemeal approach is necessary to lay the basis for further commentary.
So, let us start with Ben-Moshe’s twists on the truth:
Twist Number One:
Ben-Moshe says: “…there is, I have argued elsewhere, a typology that can be applied to the Australian far-right, which I have described as a triangle of hate.
According to that triangle, on one bottom corner are Indigenous Australians who, the far-right believe, will divide the nation through land rights. Inhabiting the other bottom corner, are Asian Australians who the far-right regard as a fifth column waiting to act on the instructions of their Northern masters. At top of this trinity are the Jews who, through control of the United Nations, banks and media, force ordinary Australians to accept reconciliation and multiculturalism at their behest.”
Saleam: Hate? The injection of the so-called anti Aboriginal idea into the Right came not so much of its own doing, but courtesy of the economic New Right of the 1980’s. These forces wanted access to Aboriginal lands for mining and through people like Joh Bjelke-Petersen, it was possible to spin the Right a yarn. Nonetheless, I must concede some so-called patriots, angry at perceived ‘privilege’ and some outrageous comments by would-be Aboriginal leaders, turned against any idea of justice. The Land Rights movement was thus in certain ways decried and some people did indeed say that this movement could divide the country. Ben-Moshe reasonably knows that my view was always different and in that regard I was not alone. I have been a member of movements which described Australia as composing two races, “the European and the Aboriginal”, and which argued for a “realistic system of Land Rights over genuinely sacred” lands and so forth. It was on this logic -and with an awareness that it was no less than P.R. Stephensen who helped found the first Aboriginal groups to try to act for the dignity of the old race – I refused to countenance Pauline Hanson’s ‘One Nation’. Trying to make Aborigines defacto white men by announcing them citizens and stripping them of certain welfare privileges, was hardly a recipe for political action. It could not challenge the state power. Interestingly, this programme was the one Howard’s Liberals would allow to float through the agency of One Nation and when that organization imploded, take back for their own purposes. Rather from the nationalist perspective, it was always better to harness Aboriginal aspirations to the great cause of Australian independence! I promise Ben-Moshe that, soon, reasonably soon, he will witness initiatives on Aboriginal policy and with actions which will blow his theory to bits.
Hate? Asians as “fifth column” forces. Did not Irene Moss of the Human Rights Commission once tells us that Australia was being “Asianised” due to our economic enmeshment with Asia? We deal here with the model of paranoia which is necessarily part of Ben-Moshe’s script. We are nutters, after all? Certainly immigrant forces can and have acted as lobbyists for certain policies. In our Chinese community we witness an unsurprising and effective Sinophilia. It is not a question so much of migrant groups acting as agents of invasion, but as agents on the ground in this country for the dispossession of the formerly dominant group. This process would, sooner or later, also affect Jews, but for the moment Ben-Moshe can play the game that his ‘community’ is part of the new diversity and a victim of ‘hate’ also. Really? I thought that his group (sic) was part of the former conservative Australian power bloc .
Hate? For one, I cannot see that Jews “control” the United Nations. I seem to remember Resolution 242 on Israel returning to its borders pre 1967 and the one-time Resolution that pronounced Zionism a form of racism. I see many states in the United Nations openly challenge the New World Order group. I can certainly see the Zionist section of Jewry in Australia ‘imposing’ legislation in this country on matters like racial vilification and by sustaining multicultural policy. I seem to recall the Australian Jewish News boasting of it all at length.Be that as it may, the “far right” may have criticisms of the mode of conduct of representatives of the Jewish community, but “hate”? Did not Isi Liebler write in 1994 that anti-semitism in Australia hardly existed and could no longer be relied upon as a mechanism to keep the Jewish community ‘Jewish’? Me thinks that Ben-Moshe needs a little anti-semitism and by asserting it now, ‘creates’ it. Is it still useful in keeping the Jewish community ‘Jewish’?
Hate? I read the Australian Jewish News regularly. It drips anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian hate, thinly disguised on occasions, nicely wrapped with allusions to terrorism etc., but it is there. It is the Zionists in Australia who hate with all the venom of their Nazi-like souls. The Zionists sprout the Israeli state line. Genocide, land-stealing, barriers to divide off the country of Israel (sic) from Palestine proper, institutional discrimination against Arabs who are citizens of Israel, refusal to allow the descendants of Arabs to return to Israel and reclaim property stolen in 1948, mobilisation of Australian Jews to justify this filth – and they talk of hate! We are meant in this country of ours to play “the Emporer’s new clothes” game and pretend that we do not see what we see. We are not meant to see that Australian (!) Zionists are essential agents for a foreign state, people who live, think and breathe the air of a “shitty little country” called Israel, if I may use the recent expression of a French minister of state. The Zionists want (indeed demand) that Australia follows the war path of the United States in the Middle East and that we defend Israel’s “right to exist”. Did they not recently justify the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, revel in many crimes and consider it normal that some Australian citizens fight in the Israeli army?
The reader needs to look into the Zionist world. I take it that the chatter of hate – can be reversed. The notion of a “triangle of hate” seems like a psycho-gadget to defuse proper intellectual inquiry. It has long been a Zionist historical construction to reduce the academic and political discussion about any movement concerned over the ethnic make-up of a ‘white society’, into an inquiry into ‘hate’, at the levels of psychology, ideology and political formation. This is a prescriptive method. In that way, movements are delegitimised at once. They are mixed into a melange where their respective characters are lost in the typology of ‘hate’. It follows too, that those who do not ‘hate’ are logical human beings, rational, modern and progressive. They serve to offer society essential mythology and conduct-models. In that way also, the Zionist agenda can be concealed since it is, in some ways, a politicisation (sic) of reactionary religious obscurantism, for the Zionist is ‘modern and rational’ only in his methods.
Twist Number Two:
Ben-Moshe says: “Sydney branch of Australian first is headed by Jim Saleam, who has previously been associated with the neo-Nazi National Alliance and Australian National Action.”
Saleam: These organizations were not ‘neo-nazi’. This lie is blatant, in your face, false history. Let me recount for the record the contrary evidence, material Ben-Moshe knows about, but ignores:
(a) The PhD theses of Hal Colebatch and Peter Henderson, which deal with these groups, do not place them in the neo-nazi category of ‘Right’ organization. These scholars refer to the traditions of Australian nationalism, labour nationalism and other domestic ideas, as their defining qualities.
(b) Andrew Moore, an acknowledged expert in the Australian Right, also implicitly declined the neo-nazi classification in one book and in a major article on the historiography of the Australian Right..
(c) In so far as this writer can call himself as corroboration of the argument, my doctoral thesis sub-divided the Australian Right into categories and I reported upon the neo-nazis as a disruptive and minoritarian trend. I explained the typology of neo-nazism. This argument was not rejected by the examiners. Needless to say in other non-academic work, I carry on to define the movements of Australian nationalism as utterly in contradistinction to any neo-nazi sect in this country (not that these small groups have had much substance.)
(d) Groups that self-place themselves in the neo-nazi camp have only offered to the nationalists their implacable opposition, something that I have documented. In my case, the neo-nazis continue to do this with passion.
(e) Any direct examination of the material of these two organizations by any objective person – would belie the claim. Certainly the statements, symbols and references which most associate with the neo-nazi cult – just do not appear there. No pikkies of Saint Adolf, no cultisation of the Third Reich, nothing, no praise for Nazi practise. Similarly, the vast collections of public statements (as per media interview) contain no such references. The Ben-Moshe argument must be that the nationalists can look and say whatever they want. They are just neo-nazis. This is not scholarship and Ben-Moshe can not prove his case. Interestingly as well, these organizations are now ‘history’. The uncritical reader would have no little trouble in trying to locate the truth. Where would he look?
My conclusion is that the imposition of false history must be a part of the ADC method. As my PhD argued, the Australian ‘Right’ suffers from a situation where its most energetic opponents are also involved in ‘defining’ it. This is almost a Gramscian battle of position in operation. Not only must we fight for political space, we must define ourselves as we run.
Twist Three:
Ben-Moshe says: “… he has sought to reinvent himself as more of a suit and tie right wing figure than a skin-head neo-Nazi.”
Saleam: Now this is sneaky. There is a subtle implication that I have been a skinhead neo-nazi. Of course, I have been neither. Or the text could mean too that I am closer to one form of person than another, but only after a period of ‘reinvention’. What was I before? In this way Ben-Moshe has a bet every which way he can.
Enough said.
Twist Four:
Ben-Moshe says: “At the centre of far right beliefs is the New World Order conspiracy, to which Saleam subscribes, arguing that the driver of this evil plan is an American/Zionist condominium; that works solely for the benefit of the Jewish state of Israel.”
Saleam: The machinations of the American Zionist condominium, so graphically illustrated in the criminal invasion of Iraq and the recent brutal attack upon Lebanon, are open-conspiracy. If I believe this ‘conspiracy’ exists, then it is obviously a well travelled idea. Ben-Moshe simply denies that something that struts in public – is actually real. He wants us to question our senses and logical faculties. Of course, the New World Order regime does not function solely for Israel’s benefit, although Israel is a key concern. So what is Ben-Moshe up to in terms of ideological debate? Aside from denying the obvious, it is necessary for the school of political theory and action to which our expert belongs, to reduce the discussion of key political developments to ‘conspiracy theory’. That is to discredit it and curtail inquiry. Whilst I have no doubt there may be any number of weird and wonderful theories getting about concerning the New World Order impetus, it is a functioning reality and one openly decried and challenged by other power blocs and leaders.
In the discussions from long ago concerning the Marxist model of capitalist conduct, it was ultimately settled that communists were not suggesting that class rule was a ‘conspiracy’. Rather they were arguing that the apparatus of state, both in its repressive and ideological aspects, perpetuated itself and governed for itself. I would argue the same thing here. I do not ‘believe in’ a ‘conspiracy’; rather, I believe in the existence of the open naked hegemonistic drive of international capitalism. The Zionists are a factor in this equation, not the only one or even always the absolutely decisive one, but a factor nonetheless. Since the “Jewish state of Israel” (I note that Ben-Moshe in racist mode has forgotten Israel’s one million Arab citizens who are oppressed inside this “Jewish state”; was it just a psychic slip?), is a fortress of the new capitalism, its ‘destruction’ (and replacement by a democratic secular Palestine for both Arabs and Jews) is an element in the struggle to overturn the New World Order.
Twist Five:
Ben-Moshe says: “According to Saleam those who control and reap profit from this order will do everything in their power to see its continuance; using every craft, wiliness and deceit at their disposal, including violence if need be, to stifle and stamp out good, clean Australian nationalist movements. In his opinion this psychotic system seeks to reduce Australia to an economic production unit of the global economy, cowed by secret policeman and restrictive legislation.”
Saleam: On this point, I thank Ben-Moshe for this free advertisement. He quotes me fairly accurately. The point is, of course, what place in the struggle does Ben-Moshe assign to himself? As below, he is eternally vigilant against the “far-right” and acts against it. In other words, he fits neatly into my model of an ideological-state-apparatus that manufactures ‘truth’ in the propaganda war so as to marginalise the forces of Australian nationalism and any other patriotic or progressive force. It gives me pleasure to label – him!
Twist Six
Ben-Moshe says: “He is also Islamophobic, which he combines and juggles with his anti-Semitism. It is morally right to oppose the immigration of Moslems into our Christian-based society. But, we should not criticise the one thing that true Moslems everywhere are fighting: the Israeli terror state. In other words, Palestinians and Moslems are tolerated as long as they are in Palestine fighting Jews.”
Saleam: Now this brew, I really liked! Islamophobia?
The Zionists, in Australia and elsewhere (especially Israel) reveal an Islamophobia of almost illness proportions. I recall Daniel Pipes who coined the term ‘Islamofascism’ for Moslem hard-liners and any others who refuse to accept Israel, a notion used by President Bush as part of his justification for a ‘war on terror’. Allegedly, these new ‘fascists’ are everywhere, willing and able to strike at freedom. In Zionist propaganda, aggressive Islamics surround Israel, plotting its destruction.
If Palestinians talk moderation, they mean violence. One may kill in a preventative way, bulldoze homes and use cluster bombs.. Moslem countries may be attacked on suspicion they might harm Israel. In his rant, Ben-Moshe reveals chutzpah of a staggering quality. If I dislike a certain type of Islam, if I suggest that such immigration should not have been allowed, then I am Islamophobic.
But if he supports Zionist paranoia, we are supposed to ignore it and invite him to inter-Faith conferences! Anti-semitism? When I say the Israeli Orthodox Jews who say Israel is a blasphemy against God and who contrive only to live in a democratic secular Palestine, represent the only possible Judaism – I am supposedly anti-semitic? Tolerate Moslems? Inside Moslem lands one must tolerate reality!
Certainly, those in Palestine who fight the Zionists have morality on their side. Tell me, where does Ben-Moshe propose to Jewish communities anywhere that Israel should tolerate its Arab citizens and allow them legal equality alongside Jews? Does he tell Israel to silence those who want the last Arabs driven out? Essentially, I reiterate the obvious: much of contemporary Islamic extremism is a reflex to the Zionist seizure of Palestine and the on-going state-criminality of Israel. If we settled that question, while other serious issues would still remain, a window of opportunity to neutralise the Islamicist movement would exist. Stripped of all finery therefore, Ben-Moshe is a Zionist hatemonger.
Twist Seven
Ben-Moshe says: “To deal with the New World Order, Saleam proposes a state of anarchy that should be aroused in every area of Australian public life. One must create tensions around chosen targets organisations and individuals, develop mass slogans around specific issues and publish energetic propaganda that discredits our targets.
Saleam: This paragraph, connected to the one that follows, looks at the possible methods to challenge New World Order capitalism. It is no accident that Ben-Moshe located it. It is necessary for those who seek to mobilise a counter-response, to point to the inherent danger in the challengers. What is directly stated is that the nationalists cannot succeed through the failed methods of the ‘far-right’ of the 1990’s. Essentially, much of the 1990’s ‘Right’ spent too much time on electoral struggle and paid insufficient attention to ideological formation and direct methods of struggle. It is sure that Ben-Moshe is warning his constituency that we are changing our approach.”
Twist Eight
Ben-Moshe says: “Saleam seeks to inject chaos and anarchy in all organisational levels of Australian societal life, advocating, among other things, the breakdown of the governmental structure and the fomentation of acute social and ethnic divisions. In Saleam’s view Australia-First are the vanguard party providing the “footsoldiers” for this process.”
Saleam: I tackle this point from the aspect of the party needed for change. I have insisted on a three-tier model of action: electoral, ideological and activist. The party is, if one likes, a type of general-staff amidst an array of inter-related networks and structures, which pursues its own interests, but acts to co-ordinate others. Without doubt, it is more a marxist style of organization and the method is well known. From my point of view and that of leading nationalists, the failures of the last fifteen years, return us to this concept. In an increasingly repressive environment, it has the further virtue of bringing discipline to the struggle. Of course, by characterising the author as an advocate of “chaos” and “anarchy”, we see the power-discourse, yet again. We see the call to arms to those who may be expected to repel such an attack.
Twist Nine
Ben-Moshe says: “Saleam is also speaking in March at the annual Inverell forum, an annual gathering of far right figures, on the subject of the Cronulla civil uprising of December 11 suggesting that Cronulla will be used as a base for Saleam to increase his standing, and indeed advance his leadership aspirations, for the broader Australian far-right.”
Saleam: Yes, I went there. I spoke with many people. I observed a deepening consciousness on the broad issues of globalisation and Australian independence, of the population crisis in Australia, of the effective collapse of the multiculti mythology. Bonds are developing. I cannot escape the conclusion that Ben-Moshe’s commentary is a type of preparation for ‘targetting’, but I will not belabour that. Rather, I conclude that the ADC has a fullsome fear of the inter-linkages that come out of the Inverell Forum and related forums. In building unity from below, we prepare for unity from above.
Twist Ten:
Ben-Moshe says: “Overall, what the above demonstrates is that that there needs to be ongoing vigilance against the far right, who have shown themselves ever ready to exploit any situation to gather support, votes, money. They can make a bad situation much worse, but their organisational appeal and resonance in the community remains limited.”
Saleam: “On the one hand we are seen as functioning with a limited support base (essentially correct at this time), but energetically moving to look for the break in the walls of resistance, to garner new influence (true). The model here has about it the smell of the intelligence-collection-agency. Vigilance means that someone has to watch. Was this Zionist offering his resources to others who defend the multiculturalist order, whilst at the same time integrating them into the ADC’s apparatus of domestic, privatised espionage?”
By now, the reader should have grasped the method in Ben-Moshe. I would now return to the very start of his article. He tells us that the ‘Right’ comes in various forms with differing perspectives. In the very first paragraph, he mentioned the Citizens Elections Council (CEC) which is based upon the teachings of the American, Lyndon La Rouche. However, in my book, the CEC is a political cult and is hardly part of the broad family to which neither this writer nor other nationalists, might have affinity. Its rejection of immigration controls or any precise definition of Australian identity with an ethnic component, its essential globalist model of economic reconstruction, suggests we are aliens. However, none of that interpretation is where Ben-Moshe is coming from. The fact is that this cult recruits Jewish youth, both here and in America. They become ‘de-Judaised’ (sic) and drop out of the Jewish community. So, when this cult is called anti-semitic, it’s a clever fraud on the part of the ADC. It is all about cultic threats to Jewish continuity. However, if one does not know that, then the posturing of the ADC about this supposedly sinister anti-semitic organization – could be true. My point is just this: the Zionists always have an agenda not always obvious at first reading.
It must be considered (as alluded to above) that the very idea of Ben-Moshe appearing at an inter-Faith dialogue, contains a humorous element. Did he appear at this gathering as the representative of yet-another Faith, or as a mover in a very-worldly political force which was seeking to preserve a role for the Zionist fraction of Australian Jewry in the formulation of Australian foreign policy on the Middle East? The Zionists present themselves as community leaders of just another community, but that is a mis-statement of their nature. That Moslem communities know this must be accepted as a fact. Others must know it too. Yet for now, it’s a game the emerging Australian liberal-totalitarianism compels them to accept. For nationalists, it is a ‘dialogue of power’. By refusing to pander to the language of the regime, we initiate the first step in its overturn.
In my view, it is truly time for a new movement amongst Australian Jews, a movement of old-faith that rejects Zionism, a spirit mobilised like that of General Monash and Isaac Isaacs who both rejected the Zionist project. However, that admonition is another story.
What does the future hold in the ideological struggle? Ben-Moshe’s article seems to foreshadow an intense period whereby we may witness the creation of a new movement at the base level to combat the advances in Australian nationalist struggle. Good intelligence and understanding of our lines of approach are the initial foundation stones of such a movement. This, the ADC, can definitely (usually, anyway) provide.
The Ben-Moshe article implicitly tells me that opposition forces are aware that this side of politics is evolving and can see opportunities if we do several things: we find local support bases; we develop a style people can accept ; we form new structures that change methods from the past ; we stay careful to reject persons with negative ideas ; we integrate core ideological notions with national populist positions ; we strive for unity in action with the entirety of our political family whilst still creating the necessary party. From this position, I learned a lot from Danny Ben-Moshe’s foray and hope to return him ever better compliments.
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