AIJAC

The Australia/Israel Affairs Council is an independent organisation involved in high-level communications with both government and media.

AIJAC NEWS

Nancy Wake – Jewish Australia Farewells a WWII Heroine

The Executive Director of the ECAJ, Peter Wertheim, today expressed praise for the late Australian war heroine, Nancy Wake.  “The Australian Jewish community joins in paying tribute to Nancy Wake, war hero, resistance fighter and secret agent, who sadly passed away on Sunday,” Mr Wertheim said.

Much has been written about her daring exploits during World War II in Nazi-occupied France.  She set up escape routes via the Pyrenees which helped save the lives of thousands of Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution as well as Allied servicemen.   In the lead-up to the D-Day landings in Normandy, she led 7,000 French resistance fighters in missions to sabotage Nazi military installations.  She outwitted the Gestapo, which placed a 5 milion franc bounty on her head and paid an unintended compliment to her skill in eluding capture by giving her the code-name “The White Mouse”.”

Highly honoured by France and Britain and, somewhat belatedly, by Australia, Nancy Wake was an inspirational example of how ordinary people can rise to extraordinary heroism in the crucible of conflict.

“The foundation of her heroism was her basic decency as a person and her refusal to abide any form of persecution or tyranny,” Mr Wertheim said.  “She became resolved to fight Nazism after witnessing the shocking mistreatment of Jewish civilians by Nazi troops in Vienna.”

“In today’s superficial world, obsessed with appearances and material concerns, Nancy Wake’s example reminds us of the things that really matter in life.   She demonstrated that one person standing up against monstrous evil can make a difference.”

…and from The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council’s Executive Director Colin Rubenstein:

“Nancy Wake was a true Australian hero, who showed tremendous strength and bravery in her involvement as a British agent with the French Resistance to the Nazis. She was able to help many European Jews, as well as Allied soldiers, to escape from the fate that awaited them in the Nazi death camps. On top of her contribution to the war effort, Ms Wake will be remembered for her involvement in Australian public life. Her loss will be keenly felt by Australia’s Jewish community, as it will be by the entire nation.”

 

Boycott proponents may face prosecution

The Victorian Government has called in the ACCC to investigate if supporters of BDS are liable for prosecution in threatening to boycott businesses with Israeli connection.

“The Australian” reports that the Australian Competition and Consumers Commission will consider injunction relief and damages after 19 people were arrested following an ugly clash between police and protesters outside the Max Brenner store in Melbourne’s CBD on July 1″.

Minister for Consumer Affairs Michael O’Brien has asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to examine whether BDS campaigners are in breach of Commonwealth law by engaging in secondary boycotts for the purpose of causing substantial loss or damage to Max Brenner’s business. The protesters have gathered outside Max Brenner stores on several occasions, preventing potential customers from entering the store.

The President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry  Dr Danny Lamm today said: “We applaud the Victorian Government for having the moral fibre to stand up to the immoral and illegal BDS campaign.

Whilst the right to engage in peaceful protest is sacrosanct, anyone seeking to exercise that right must do so within the law.

The local businesses which have been targeted by BDS protesters all operate in accordance with Australian law, and the protesters must do likewise.  If the protesters transgress the law, they should be punished with the same severity as any business that breaks the law.”

Dr Lamm accused the protesters of being “highly selective” about the Israeli products which they have targeted.  “The BDS organizers will call for a boycott of certain Israeli cosmetics and chocolate products.  But they wouldn’t dream of telling you not to use Windows operating systems developed by Microsoft Israel, or mobile phone technology that was refined in Israel by Motorola, or Israeli medical innovations,” Dr Lamm said.  “They are not prepared to make any personal sacrifices.  It’s a ‘Claytons’ boycott”, he concluded.  “The real agenda is to defame Israel, as their slogans reveal”.

Asked whether the ECAJ would like to see the Federal government and other State governments join with Victoria in referring the major BDS organizations to the ACCC, Dr Lamm answered, “Definitely.  A strong bipartisan voice saying ‘No’ to BDS will reflect the basic sentiment of most Australians that the bitterness and complexity of foreign conflicts should be kept out of our peaceful country”.

The Jewish Community of Victoria also expressed its support for the Victorian Coalition Government’s call for a probe into the legality of the BDS demonstrations.

Jewish Community Council of Victoria President John Searle said: “We heartily support the call for an investigation into the demonstrators’ activities and congratulate the Minister for his good understanding of the pernicious intent of the protesters. Whilst demonstrators have the right to freedom of speech, they do not have the right to break the law, threaten someone’s livelihood and harass and vilify innocent shoppers”.

“I expect that all breaches of the law as a result of targeting certain stores in this manner and preventing the stores from trading will produce a positive response from the ACCC such that this thuggery on our streets will soon be brought to an end.”

Searle noted that in addition to the harm the protesters were causing to stores, their behaviour intimidated and harassed other shoppers and “this is something that families on a shopping trip do not want to contend with”.

“We believe that it is highly un-Australian to try to force the closure of law- abiding businesses, as is the playing out of foreign conflicts on our shores,” Searle concluded.

Their sentiments were echoed by The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. Executive Director Dr Colin Rubenstein issued the following statement:

AIJAC welcomes the decision of the Government of Victoria to ask the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to investigate whether organisations campaigning for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)  against Israel have been conducting “secondary boycotts for the purpose of causing substantial loss or damage”, in breach of section s45D of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.

AIJAC applauds the decision of the Victorian Government to refer the matter to the ACCC and hopes that the businesses that have been targeted by the boycott are provided with the injunctive relief or damages to which they are entitled. We call on other Governments around Australia, state and federal, to send a clear message that Australians will not tolerate bullying, hateful and divisive tactics by following Victoria’s lead and supporting this or similar complaints to the ACCC.

The BDS movement has been targeting businesses in Australia for no reason other than their perceived relationship with Israel.  They have included cafes, skincare product stores and other companies with little or no political influence or direct involvement in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Dr Rubenstein asserted that, “such discriminatory practices have no place in Australian society and, moreover, will only serve to intensify the Palestinian/Israeli conflict by promoting division and hatred.”

“A peaceful resolution in the Middle East can only be achieved through meaningful negotiations based on mutual cooperation, understanding and dialogue. This is the view of the Australian Government, as well as an overwhelming majority of the international community,” he said. “These boycotts are the very opposite of such dialogue and engagement. Anyone who hopes for Middle East peace based on two states should be standing firmly against them, including opposing them by all legal means available, as the Victorian Government has so commendably demonstrated.”

A Voice from Arab Jerusalem

Khaled abu Toameh, who describes himself as an “Israeli, Muslim, Arab Palestinian” journalist and spoke yesterday to Sydney media…

His career started 27 years ago working as a journalist for the PLO at a time when Israel “turned a blind eye” to the publication of a Palestinian press within its borders.

Toameh 47, worked for the organisation for seven years before moving to the Jerusalem Post.  He told the meeting that foreign media is never threatened within Israel for writing anti-Israel material adding that the story was quite different for those journalists working within the Palestinian community. He said that the foreign media’s freedom in the West Bank and Gaza was curtailed for a number of reasons including lack of  easy access to Palestinian leaders, a need for translators and the need for a guide….all services he has provided for 22 years. Toameh has written for leading newspapers throughout the U.S. and Europe and has produced TV news ducumentaries for a world-wide audience including Australia’s “Sixty Minutes”. Nine years ago, he joined the Jerusalem Post as a journalist focusing on Palestinian affairs but continues to work with foreign media and is a correspondent for America’s NBC network.

Toameh has been accused of being pro-Israel. He told the meeting “I am not pro-Israel, I am not pro-Palestinian, I am not pro-American, I am not pro-Russian.” Toameh said that his main criterion was to work for an organisation where he had “a free platform”. He said: “As an Arab Moslem living in that part of the world, the only place where I can express myself freely is in a Jewish newspaper.” Toameh said that his work at the Jerusalem Post had not interfered with his connections with Hamas and Fatah in the West Bank and Gaza and that they are aware that “the best way to relay a message to the Israeli public is through the media.” He added that not a single member of Hamas or Gaza had denied him an interview because he was working for an Israeli newspaper.

He told the meeting that he believed in separation between Jews and Palestinians and in ending occupation. He criticised the international community for giving enormous amounts of money to the late Yasser Arafat in the belief that if he was funded, peace had a chance. He told the meeting that very little of the money had reached the Palestinian people. Between 1994 and 2001, Arafat received almost $10 billion, mostly from America. He said that a casino was built instead of hospitals and schools. “I tried to alert my foreign colleagues in 1995 amd 1996 to let them know that the funds were not going to the people.” Toameh reminded the meeting that he was working for Arafat at the time, and that the foreign media had questioned him as to whether or not he was “a Zionist agent”.

Toameh told the meeting that the foreign media’s answer was that Arafat’s corruption “did not fit into their narrative” and that an anti-Israel anti-occupation story would “make their lives much easier”.  He said that the Palestinian people did not benefit from the funds received by Arafat causing them to become disillusioned and radicalised. Hamas then become stronger, running their election under the banner of change. The Palestinians had nothing to lose by voting for Hamas. He said that the power struggle between Fatah and Hamas has claimed the lives of over 2,000 Palestinians. In July 2007, when Hamas won the elections, Fatah supporters tried to flee Gaza but the Egyptians closed the borders and “Israel was the only country in the world which sent help to stop Moslems being slaughtered by Moslems”.

He said that if Israel deployed its forces from the West Bank, Hamas would take over the area. On the subject if the peace process Toameh was critical of the U.S. president’s current initiative saying that the biggest mistake Obama is making is to attempt to drag the parties to the negotiating table when the gap between them remains as wide as ever. He told the meeting: “It would have been better to have a ceasefire in Gaza and to  improve the economy in the West Bank..and then just waiting. But to talk at the table at this time about explosive issues..it is only a matter of time before it explodes in our faces again. We have had a period of stability in the last year or two. Things have been calming down and there has been an improvement in the economy in Gaza.”

J-Wire asked him what he meant by waiting. Toumeh replied: “They should wait until things improve. Until the economy in the West Bank is strong. This will have a moderating effect on the people which will lead to them be more willing to make compromises and concessions for peace in the future.”

Media members asked him how he saw matters panning out over the next ten years. He replied that he could not even judge what will happen over the next ten minutes.

Khaled abu Toameh visited Sydney under the auspices of the United Israel Appeal the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. He addressed Sydney’s major media outlets, universities, the Jewish community and political identities. He will also visit Canberra and Melbourne.

New face at AIJAC

Lauren Jones will fill the newly created role of National Public Affairs Officer for the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, a position she will take up in AIJAC’s Sydney office.

Dr Colin Rubenstein, AIJAC’s Executive Director said, “We are very pleased with this appointment since Lauren brings considerable academic and professional expertise to the position.  She will enhance liaison with national media, assist in advocacy work, add new dimensions to AIJAC’s visitor programs to Australia and contribute to our very active Rambam Israel Study Program.”

Dr Rubenstein noted “Lauren comes to the organisation from Australia’s Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, where she was an Adviser in the Office of National Security, responsible for numerous national security-related strategic policy projects. Prior to this, Lauren was a policy officer in the Border Security Division of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.”

“Lauren has excellent credentials for advocating Jewish communal concerns, having previously held a research position at AIJAC. Lauren also served as a tutor and guest lecturer at Brown University in the United States in  courses related to Genocide and Holocaust Studies, Jewish History, as well as Modern Middle East History.”

Lauren Jones holds a Bachelor of Arts/Laws from the University of Technology Sydney, a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in European History and Judaic Studies from the University of Sydney, and a Masters of Arts in History from Brown University, Rhode Island, USA.

From Warfare to Lawfare

The political campaign by NGOs to demonise and delegitimise Israel – exemplified by the Goldstone Report relying upon their evidence – may be even more of a threat to the Jewish state than actual war according to NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg.

Steinberg, whose Jerusalem-based organisation monitors the activities and funding of NGOs, outlined the contours of this new threat to Israel called “lawfare” in Melbourne last night while delivering the 2010 Hans Bachrach Oration.

“It is more dangerous than actual warfare because we are still learning to deal with this new type of threat which accuses Israel of war crimes and being an apartheid state,” Steinberg warned.

The Goldstone Report into Israel’s conduct during the January 2009 Gaza conflict with Hamas relied upon 500 “claims, submissions and testimonies” made by various NGOs about the Gaza conflict, Steinberg claimed.

He said the quality of the Goldstone Report’s eyewitness evidence must be measured against the fact it was gathered from Palestinians in Gaza under the watchful eye of Hamas and minimised the real war crimes committed by Hamas.

The campaign against Israel is run by NGOs like Oxfam, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and World Vision that in many instances undertake valid humanitarian work elsewhere in the world but this doesn’t alleviate the problem that ”even a little poison can kill you,” he said.

Organisations like Human Rights Watch are not just constituted with human rights professionals, Steinberg claimed, but often unelected and unaccountable ideologues twisting international law and morality to suit their goals by pushing propaganda that masquerades as truth and fact.

“You cannot claim to be a credible human rights organisation if you are claiming universality of rights but end up only demonising one country,” Steinberg said.

The failure of NGOs to probe the real human rights breaches of Hamas and Hezbollah and countries like Syria and Saudi Arabia shows that the one-sided and political bias in this campaign to delegitimise Israel is not about the universality of human rights, he suggested, but rather denying the right of Israel to be a Jewish state.

“Human Rights Watch has not written one report on Hamas’ capture of Gilad Shalit nor rocket attacks on the Israeli town of Sderot but solicited funds in Saudi Arabia to continue its work against Israel,” Steinberg said.

The cycle of delegitimisation begins with NGOs dedicating a large percentage of very substantial budgets to focus upon and release reports on Israel and its alleged war crimes, Steinberg explained.

“The media then acts as an automatic amplifier of these NGOs and their reports attacking Israel as an apartheid state and being guilty of war crimes.

“The UN gets in on the act and then foreign ministers put out statements largely based upon what the media reported. And there is unquestioning acceptance of the reports’ claims and testimony,” Steinberg said.

Steinberg was particularly critical of the role played by the New Israel Fund (NIF) in dispensing millions of dollars every year to Israeli NGOs that do not represent the views of the Israeli mainstream but rather adopt the classic narrative of Palestinians as victims and Israelis as perpetrators.

“The NIF claims it supports pluralism and democracy in Israel but let’s see it support the Palestinian equivalent of Peace Now, but they cannot because no such group exists in Palestinian society,” Steinberg noted.

He traced the rise of the campaign to isolate and demonise Israel back to the 2001 United Nations Durban I conference that was convened to tackle racism in the 21st century. The conference was hijacked by NGOs and only singled out Israel to the exclusion of all other countries, Steinberg said.

“The obscenity is that legal mechanisms like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that were developed in the wake of the failure to prevent the Holocaust are now being used against Jews and unfortunately Israel has only belatedly recognised this new type of lawfare,” Steinberg said.

He said the most effective method of stopping the delegitimisation of Israel is to name and shame these NGOs by exposing them as “unaccountable, unelected organisations operating according to their own rules” and publicise the internal contradictions and mistakes in their reports.

Some successes are being achieved, Steinberg said, noting the New York Times opinion piece by Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, which attacked the organisation. Likewise some major sponsors have withdrawn funds after realising their support for genuine human rights purposes was being allocated to one-sided political campaigns against Israel, Steinberg said.

Allon Lee is a policy analyst with the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council which co-sponsors the Hans Bachrach Oration.

For further information on NGO Monitor please visit www.ngo-monitor.org

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