What is the decision of the LP collective?

Will you publish ‘How Humane and Civilised!’ by Nasri Hajjaj or do you adhere to the absurd accusation that it is a ‘blood libel’?

See What is”Palestinian Land Day”? — Poet Darwish explains

Ian Curr
3 April 2010

Paul & Liam from LP,

Please do not go running to Wikipedia, try to parse the poem properly.

Some help for you:

‘Jailed my sun’ — not his ‘son’ but his ‘sun’ – obviously this is use of a metphor. Australian and israeli prison’s contain many aboriginal and Palestinian sons but this is not what Hajjaj is saying. It is his ‘sun’ that has been jailed. Where sun is clearly a metaphor. Do you know what the poet means?

‘Then ground their bones at McDonnell-Douglas’ — many children were killed in Gaza by the IDF last year but no bones were ground at McDonnell-Douglas, clearly another metaphor.

‘And offered them back to me As a present in a flour-sack’ — obviously no flour is being offered least of all flour from children’s bones.

Clearly no one is drinking their blood. Yet another metaphor.

Ian Curr
Mar 2010

Ian Curr

That’s Friday the 19th of March.

See you all there!

I don’t dispute that your exercise of discretion in the context of LP’s responsibilities and the desire most of us share to avoid being on the wrong end of plausible claims of anti-semitism, could be reasonable, but I’d urge you to exercise this discretion as sparingly as possible, so as to avoid implicitly affirming as blood libel, claims that are purely political and related to current disputes.

I have had enough contact with anti-discrimination committees, tribunals, policies and laws to form a judgment that there is a non-trivial probability that such material could at least be the basis for an arguable case under Queensland and Federal anti-discrimination laws, and those of other jurisdictions in which this blog can be accessed. The respondents to such a complaint would include not only Nasri Hajjaj and yourself, but also myself as moderator of the thread and any individuals legally responsible for the content of LP. Perhaps a defence could be mounted which would succeed legally, but not before much unpleasantness and trouble had ensued for all concerned. All things considered, I have decided to err on the side of caution.

Any further discussion of this specific matter will be conducted privately until further notice.

Liam and Paul,

Can you explain how the poem ‘How humane and civilized!’ by Palestinian poet Nasri Hajjaj is a blood libel?

It is not as if the poem accuses the butcher of Beirut, Ariel Sharon, of eating babies.

It is true the US is behind much of the carnage of Palestinians. After all it is the US that supplies Israel’s guns and money. Many of the soldiers in the Israeli ‘Defence’ Force (IDF) come from the US.

These are facts not superstitious myth. Being true the words in the poem cannot be a ‘blood libel’ as Liam claims.

Liam, you may have to explain the term you use, when you accuse Nasri Hajjaj of ‘blood libel’. I, for one, had never heard of it.

Also, Paul, you might like to explain how Hajjaj’s poem can be in breach of Australia’s anti-discrimination laws. Surely it is important that Australia does discriminate against the apartheid state of Israel.

Especially given the bloodletting that Israeli military committed in Gaza little more than a year ago and in Lebanon as recently as 2006.

Ian Curr
March 2010