Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Sunday 10 April 2016

In Australia, Anti-Israel Activists Maintain That Loving Feeling

SBS ex-newsreader Mary Kostakidis retweets ...
It seems that anti-Israel activists in Australia might have decided that fiction (I mean the stuff that owns up to being fiction) is the propagandistic way to go.

My previous post tells of the adoption of a Palestinian activist's play by the powers that decide the curriculum in the Aussie state of Victoria, aimed at teenagers.

Quite a coup, leading to enormous satisfaction on the anti-Israel mob's part.

Where has the Aussie Jewish "leadership" been meanwhile?

Have they protested?

Have they been fobbed off with the fact that also on the VCE playlist for 2016 is a play that uses an Aboriginal leader's 1938 protest to the German Embassy over Nazi persecution of Jews as a peg on which to hang its themes?  If so, they are woefully mistaken, for the latter play is in no sense a trade-off.

Soon to be launched, in Adelaide, is a novel by pro-BDS stalwart Professor Emeritus Stuart Rees of Jake Lynch's Peace Centre.

Like the Palestinian activist's play, Rees's novel would appear to have a love story as hook on which to hang a political message.

The book is to be launched in May by Adelaide barrister Paul Heywood-Smith QC, a founding member of the Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA).

An early AFOPA initiative in Adelaide (2010)  

In 2013 AFOPA paid for billboards in Adelaide showing the misleading maps

Mr Heywood-Smith's views on Israel and on its supporters within the Australian Jewish community can be glimpsed here (something about "divided loyalties").

And then there's his own book, The Case for Palestine: The perspective of an Australian observer, launched last year.

Here's what Michael Easson, a patron of the Australia Israel Labor Dialogue, had to say about it.  Inter alia:

"Heywood-Smith is an unsteady captain of his ship and sometimes runs aground. His caveat emptor, that ambition might outstretch ability as an historian, is amply evidenced. Two egregious clangers are the naming of the social democrat Russian Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky as a ‘Jewish Bolshevik’ (he was neither) and the claim that Sir Raphael Cilento, having merely ‘questioned’ ‘Zionist imperialism’, was drummed out of Australian diplomatic life. (Cilento was a Holocaust denier, big supporter and donor to the far-right League of Rights, in short, an anti-semitic ratbag).
 Superficial, sophomoric judgements abound in this philippic....
Heywood-Smith raises the discredited claim that most Jews are actually not descendants from the land of Israel but Khazar converts, a possibility that discredits Zionism. He even manages to claim that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al Husseini, the notorious Hitler supporter, hardly amounted to much: ‘There is no evidence, however, that Amin’s views translated into material support for Nazi Germany from the Palestinian people.’ All he ever did was raise a volunteer Muslim SS contingent in the Balkans. Almost harmless, really.
In a potted history of WWI, Heywood-Smith argues ‘Britain became desperate to bring the US into the conflict. This enabled Zionists to play a winning card’, implying that they bargained with Britain to support a Zionist state. All this shows is that Heywood-Smith cannot help finding a point and embellishing it. He claims all the problems with the Middle East stem from western imperialism and the creation of Israel. This is simple-mindedness writ large. He snidely questions whether Australian Labor MP Michael Danby, who is Jewish, is guilty of dual loyalties....
Bizarrely, Heywood-Smith claims that then Israeli PM Ehud Barak refused to meet with Yasser Arafat in 2000 at the Camp David Summit convened by Bill Clinton. (They met many times. This is where Barak offered the Palestinian Authority nearly 97 per cent of the West Bank, plus land swaps). Instead of transparency, as the Palestinians wanted, the Israelis traded in secrecy, Heywood-Smith claims.
Mother love is in the air
 He expresses sympathy for the BDS campaign and complains that the Palestinian Authority is complicit with doing deals with Israel and ‘so clearly does not represent the Palestinian people.’ Australian-born Martin Indyk, a consistent critic of Israeli PM Netanyahu and adviser to Presidents Clinton and Obama, is dismissed as a Zionist. 
So, what are Heywood-Smith’s solutions? ‘The Jewish communities that thrived for centuries in Morocco, Tunisia, Baghdad, Damascus, Istanbul and Seville, to mention but a few sites, should be encouraged to restore themselves.’ Jews go home, in other words...."

7 comments:

  1. “Too many people dismiss the prospect of a worldwide jihad occurring again. In doing so, they misunderstand the ideology of original Islam or naively assume its resolve. Political correctness has literally paralyzed many in government and created an atmosphere in which fear of being called intolerant or an “Islamophobe” trumps concerns over safeguarding our lives and liberties.

    Were we living in a time when weapons of mass destruction did not exist and global transportation was virtually impossible, a misread of this enemy might be excusable.

    But we do not live in such a time. If an Islamic radical is willing to put his children in a car, buckle them in, fill the car with explosives, use the children as props to deceive the soldiers at a security checkpoint, and then detonate the bomb—with the children still in the car—what makes anyone believe such a radical would hesitate to detonate a nuclear bomb if he had a chance?”

    SOURCE: They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It (introduction chapter, page 5) by Brigitte Gabriel, year 2008, year 2010, St. Martin’s Press, 288 pages, ISBN 0312571283, ISBN 9780312571283.

    PS: Please check out these pro-Israel web sites:
    www.camera.org * www.HonestReporting.com * www.memri.org * www.ActForAmerica.org * www.aish.com * www.IsraelLawCenter.org

    ReplyDelete
  2. According to a report by the Open Doors organization, the top-ten-worst countries for anti-Christian persecution in year 2015 were: North Korea, Iraq, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iran and Libya.

    All these nations are ruled by Communists or Muslims or both.

    Notice that NONE of those nations are being targeted by the BDS movement!

    SOURCE: 2015 Was Not a Good Year For Jews and Christians Living in Muslim Lands, an article by Martin Barillas 2016 January 18, published by Spero News
    www.speroforum.com/a/FTVWPWVWSF49/77129-2015-was-not-a-good-year-for-Jews-and-Christians-living-in-Muslim-lands#.VwQPZnktA5s

    ReplyDelete
  3. Welcome to the world of The New York Times,
    where only Palestinian victims have names,
    ages, and sympathetic eyewitnesses:


    www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260373/new-york-times-no-israeli-victims-palestinian-phyllis-chesler

    ReplyDelete
  4. ***********************************************
    Three Surprising Critics of the
    Anti-Israel BDS Movement
    ***********************************************


    [1] Peace Now, one of the Left’s most well-known organizations that never misses an opportunity to harshly criticize the Israeli government, has stated that BDS is tantamount to collective punishment.

    [2] Professor Norman Finkelstein, another much-admired voice of the Left, who has made many vicious statements against Israel, has disavowed the BDS campaign and called it: “silliness, childishness, and a lot of leftist posturing.”

    [3] Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, has denounced the BDS movement. (Will wonders never cease?)

    He said: “No, we do not support the boycott of Israel. We do not ask anyone to boycott Israel itself. We have relations with Israel. We have mutual relations with Israel.”

    SOURCE: Unmasking the BDS Movement, by Dave Gordon, found in Community Magazine, April 2016, page 28

    ReplyDelete
  5. According to Pew Research:

    42% of French Muslims between from age 18 to 29 believe that suicide bombings against civilians can be justified.

    35% of British Muslims between from age 18 to 29 believe that suicide bombings against civilians can be justified.

    26% of American Muslims between from age 18 to 29 believe that suicide bombings against civilians can be justified.

    SOURCE: By the Numbers, a video by Raheel Raza
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSPvnFDDQHk
    http://zalmi.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-brave-muslim-woman-tells-us-what-were.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. Understand how Leftists think about Muslims:
    http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-left-went-wrong-on-islam.html

    Understand how the Muslims think:
    http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2010/02/appeal-of-islam-islamism-is-reaction-to.html
    http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-drives-islam-to-be-religion-of-war.html
    http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-western-pursuit-of-muslim-moderates.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the ready references, Mr Cohen. Will refer to as needed.

      Delete

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