The Malcolm Fraser I knew
Isi Leibler knew the late Malcolm Fraser well. He tells J-Wire about Australia’s 22nd Prime Minister…a man whose passionate support for Israel was to take a reverse turn…
From Isi Leibler in Jerusalem:
Malcolm Fraser and Isi Leibler (1981)
“During his term of office, I regarded Malcolm Fraser as a genuine philo-Semite. With only one minor exception he was always fully supportive of Israel. Whenever we met he would engage in passionate discussion, expressing his support for the Jewish state.
During the football grand final weekend he would stay overnight in Melbourne. Knowing that I was observant of the Sabbath and that walking from Caulfield to the Central City would have been very difficult, he would come to my home on a Friday evening after dinner and stay late in the night sipping Cognac and discussing Israel.
I clearly recollect how on one occasion he asked me to unofficially convey to the Israeli government information he had gleaned overseas about a plot being hatched against Israel. It proved to be groundless but reflected his concern about the security and welfare about the Jewish state.
It is hard to reconcile this friend of Israel and the Jewish people with the bitter anti Israel extremist he became after his retirement.
Fraser was a hard sadistic man who supported Israel because of the USA .He came to hate Jews because they helped Hawke get into Power a far more proJewish Man.
Indeed, Mr Leibler, INDEED.
Malcolm F became a malcontent: he postulated so many anti – Israel conspiracies / plots in his post – 2000 outpourings that he rapidly came to be seen as an antagonist of the only democracy in the Middle East.
Sadly I understate it.
Comparison with Bob Carr is a thankless, close to useless task.
Both were / are / remain willfully blind. Generously speaking.
Perhaps a task of trying to work out why Fraser became the apparently REAL Fraser is nevertheless worthy of contemplation.
So many people have a change of mind: Robert Manne of the Darville – Deminenko days was a very different man of his post – modernist close to extreme left being he has plainly become.
The late Christopher Hitchins dropped his communist orientation – yet remained a severe critic of Israel.
Yet the great writers for The Australian Ross Fitzgerald, Garry Johns and Michael Costa have for years now have come to be seen as being of conservative mind.
It is also a sign of the times thjat ‘conservative’ reads supportive of Israel.
Sadly this is rare.Tragically this is not a rash generalization. Another day I will write a thesis on it.
Fraser – to get back on track – has probably had a conversion to his Road To The Left* – basis the lacerations he endured post The Dismissal. There would have been surely many who accosted him in unforgiving tones.
[See *Road to Damascus – Wiktionary]
And of course he had to sell Nareen in 1997 to cover massive losses re his involvement with the Lloyds List.
It may have seemed like a good investment at the time – but he lost more than his trousers!
So – maybe the sad corollary in his initial warm inner glow towards his conversion to the left was via Bob Hawke anoininting him CHOGM HEAD HONCHO – but the REAL progenitors of the REAL Fraser as above were probably his financial losses.
Who knows: everyone knows Lloys is dominated by the Jews?!!! [parody]
SO – I verily say to those elsewhere – ALL WE OWE THE DEAD IS THE TRUTH.
May the left – which collectively used to be traditional friends of Israel – take a sample from Ross Fitzgerald, Garry Johns amd Michael Costa.
May there be a ROAD TO ISRAEL in their conversion to rationalsm political and economic.
GS
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BUSINESS SPECTATOR MARCH 20, 2015 11:11AM
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/the-unknown-side-of-malcolm-fraser/story-fnp85ntp-1227270826330
There was also a personal tragedy as part of the Fraser story but it’s not often talked about. Like so many in the farming community, the Fraser family supplemented its farming income by being a “Lloyds name”. Being a name meant you had unlimited liability for a portion of an insurance underwriting syndicate. Australians ended up in some of the worst syndicates and many farming families were affected. The Frasers were among them. Malcolm Fraser was forced to sell his family’s Western District farm, Nareen, in 1997.
Business Spectator