Of course, as any red-blooded Zionist knows, the New Israel Fund is a controversial organisation to say the least, and one which numerous supporters of Israel regard, as they do J-Street, with deep suspicion. The organisation NGO Monitor has many examples of the NIF's eyebrow-raising initiatives.
Landau's been interviewed on the ABC (Australia's answer to the BBC, and, broadly speaking, with a similar jaundiced lefty approach to Israel) and on SBS, which is certainly not known for its over-friendliness towards the Jewish State.
David Landau's position on Israel can be gleaned from a breakfast time talk he gave in Sydney to invited guests of the New Israel Fund, reported here.
The decision of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies to invite him privately to address its members has, it seems, been widely criticised by communal activists who have Israel's interests uppermost in their heart.
This has prompted that supreme political realist, David Singer, the Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst, to resign from the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies. As reported in the latest J-Wire, Singer has written:
"The Board Of Deputies No Longer Represents Me
It is with much regret that I have tendered my long standing membership of the Board of Deputies.
My reasons are two fold:
The decision of the Board to host David Landau at a luncheon last week.
The failure of the Board to take any action against New Israel Fund Australia holding a fund raising appeal in breach of Communal guidelines.
The Board cannot argue that it was unaware of the consequences of extending its hospitality to a person with extreme views that are inimical to Israel’s national interest.
I voiced my opposition to such an invitation which could be taken to indicate communal acceptance of such views – rather than communal disgust.
Mr Landau is entitled to say whatever he likes and to be roundly criticised and condemned – as is apparent from the spirited comments in J-Wire.
For the Board to welcome him as it did at a lunch was unforgivable.
The Board’s failure to do anything about a fund raising appeal by New Israel Fund Australia in breach of communal guidelines is also regrettable and indicates a lack of leadership in the community’s interest.
My letter to the Board objecting to such an appeal being held was not even answered.
Is any organisation now free to hold an appeal at any time without reference to the communal guidelines?
Sorry – these two actions by the Board do not represent my views nor do they in my opinion represent responsible leadership in the interests of our community.
I urge any other members who also feel similarly outraged by these decisions to also resign their membership."
Still without normal computer - thus there may be delay in posting any comments - apologies in advance!
ReplyDeleteOslo is dead. The Arab side has demonstrated that it was not seeking genuine peace, but the destruction of Israel by stages. How many concessions does the Zionist movement and Israel need to make before Mr Landau will start asking the Arab side to do something for peace, instead of undermining Israel?
ReplyDeleteArab leaders persecuted their Jewish population from the 1920s, and launched a relentless campaign, against the interests of their own people, to obliterate the Jewish national revival …before any “occupation” and even before the establishment of the State of Israel.
Israel has accepted, but Arabs have categorically rejected every opportunity to form a Palestinian state alongside Israel, since the Weizmann-Feisel Agreement in 1919.
The Arab states have always held the key to solving the Palestinian problem. The Palestinian refugees could long ago have been resettled among their people in Arab lands, which extend over five million square miles. These nations have the land and money to rehabilitate the Palestinian refugees; Israel, with a fraction of Arab land and wealth, absorbed 850,000 Jews driven from Arab countries between 1948 and 2001. There were 25 million refugees created in the wake of World War 2, including the Jewish remnants of the Holocaust. All have been settled. The Arabs’ refusal to do the same with the Palestinians shows that they are more interested in using the refugees as a political weapon against Israel than they are in truly solving the problem.
Indeed, those who envision a future Palestinian polity, in focussing on demonising Israel, completely ignore the grim and ongoing realities of the challenges to be faced in creating the new Palestinian state:
• a stagnant class structure,
• unproductive economic habits,
• an uncurious and increasingly reactionary culture,
• deeply cruel relationships between the sexes and toward gays,
• no notion of an independent judiciary,
• inciting hatred of Jews, USA and the West, and
• a primitive religious mentality that bestows prestige and the promise of sexual rewards in paradise for suicide bombers.
For a century, self-serving oil-rich Arab leaders have kept the refugees of 1948 and their descendants in squalor and dependent on international aid, as cannon fodder, fed on hatred and false hope, and squandered repeated opportunities for statehood and economic progress.
I’m sick of hearing from the likes of David Landau about how it’s all up to to Israel to keep appeasing its sworn enemies and how our Jewish neshama is at risk because it doesn’t subscribe to his appeasement strategy. It’s about time, after a century of Arab rejection, that he turns his attention to the despots and dictators who have rejected peace with Israel and ignored the plight of their own people. It takes two to make peace …and the Arab side is not yet ready to tango….
We have long held reservations about the NIF and strongly disapprove of their agenda vis a vis Israel.
ReplyDeleteWe remember a time before the Six Day War when the predominately Anglo-Jewish Board of Deputies was very lukewarm in its attitude to Zionism and deplore its actions in this matter.
Thanks for the comments! My computer seems to be restored to health again...
ReplyDelete