Daphne Anson: Australia's BDS Council May Face Sack

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)

Friday, 15 April 2011

Australia's BDS Council May Face Sack

"It's unproductive. It's completely disconnected from the reality of Middle Eastern politics," Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd says of the Greens-driven BDS obsession that now is impelling the inner Sydney Marrickville Council to throw away all items in its possession with links to Israel. (Hat tip: reader Shirlee)

This BDS move, which conjures up distasteful images of the Nazi era and, not surprisngly, is widely seen as antisemitic (though they'd never admit to that, would they?), involves Hewlett Packard computers, Veolia waste services and Chevrolet (Holden) cars, among other products. (See other products here: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/marrickville-council-faces-4-million-bill-for-israel-bans/story-e6freuzi-1226038733018).

The Premier of New South Wales, Barry O'Farrell, the President of the Local Government Association of NSW, Keith Rhoades, the Federal Greens leader, Bob Brown, and the founder of the Aussie Greens, Norm Sanders, have all attacked the Council's obsession, with Sanders saying exasperatedly on radio "What's all this anti-Jewish stuff? I haven't heard one word about the environment from these people [Marrickville's self-styled Greens]."

It's time, he indicated, for the Greens to return to their core values, which are unreflected in the policy, and for the council to return to the purpose for which it exists (namely, rates, roads, and rubbish).

O'Farrell has warned Marrickville's boycott-happy mayor and aspiring politician Fiona Byrne (pictured, who's reportedly "gone to ground") that unless the council abandons the policy it may face the sack.

It seems that the cost of boycotting Israel will be $A3.7million, and in consequence at least one Green councillor appears to be backing away from the folly. Indeed, there's some talk of a split among them.

Meanwhile, Green senator-elect Lee Rhiannon, an old hard-left anti-Zionist trouper who grew up in a Communist household, has defiantly told Sky News: "It's not an anti-Israel position at all."

Yep, Lee. Tell that to the marines.

5 comments:

Rita15 April 2011 at 22:56
Good on the new Premier of N.S.W. He seems to have quite some back-bone. Showed it recently, in putting the propagandist ABC TV pin-up boy, Kerry O'Brian in his box!

But still, it's only once we speak of financial cost that the pro-jihadist Greens and their apologists hesitate to persue what is no less than Jew-hatred, even if you dress it up with the euphemism of "BDS"?

It is wrong, wrong, wrong: politically, ethically and MORALLY !! full stop!
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Daphne Anson16 April 2011 at 00:57
Excellent points, Rita - thanks!
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deegee16 April 2011 at 07:17
Don't forget the cost of throwing away all PC computers (Intel, Microsoft and IBM have research centres in Israel) and mobile phones (Motorola has a research centre in Israel and AMDOCS, CheckPoint and Comverse are major players).

The Greens may be Luddites but I don't think Marrickville would run well without computers or phones.
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violet17 April 2011 at 02:31
Tossing working equipment to buy new isn't a "green" practice at all. Remind of them of the three Rs: reuse, reduce, recycle.
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Daphne Anson17 April 2011 at 02:47
Yes, deegee, they really are making idiots of themselves.
Violet, great point!
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Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
[L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

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Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

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There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth. David Singer (2016)

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The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years? David Singer (2016)

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Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.
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For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

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