BDSing Aussie Professor Writes of "Israel's Vampiric History" (updated)

Once upon a time, 2002 to be precise,  two Aussie academics, one of Lebanese Christian background and the other Joo-ish (see my post here) co-sponsored an online anti-Israel petition  A journalist for the Melbourne Age (from the Fairfax stable of Aussie newspapers and thus no great friend to Israel) reported inter alia on 6 June that year:

"Angered at Israel's treatment of Palestinians, the pair last month launched an online petition calling for the boycott. They have collected about 100 signatures but have also provoked a counter-petition that attacks the pair for singling out Israel and failing to request similar boycotts of academic contacts with totalitarian regimes such as China and the Arab states."

The Lebanese-born academic referred to was anthropologist Ghassan Hage, then of the University of Sydney and now of the University of Melbourne (see image at left, dating to 2015).

As I well recall, the online petition he co-sponsored soon became a laughing stock.  How the two co-authors must have exulted at seeing the number of signatures steadily rise, only to realise that swelling the numbers were such monikers as "Adolf Hitler" and "Yasser Arafat" and even, if I recall correctly,  "Ariel Sharon".  Thus adorned with signatures each more preposterous than the last, and teeming with  pro-Israel comments, the flopped petition was in effect put out of its misery when its "add signature" facility was hidden from public view so that no further sport could be had with it.

Here's Professor Hage, who began his academic career as a political scientist and holds the chair of anthropolgy and social theory at Melbourne Uni, talking about racism:

On 6 June 2010 the Electronic Intifada published the following by Professor Hage in response to the Mavi Marmara incident, reprinted here:

Ghassan Hage’s response to some of the outrageously unbelievable Israeli propaganda that spewed forth from the mouths of Israeli political leaders and their spokespersons in the days following Israel’s massacre of civilians in international waters:

I don’t write poems but, in any case, poems are not poems.

Long ago, I was made to understand that Palestine was not Palestine;

I was also informed that Palestinians were not Palestinians;

They also explained to me that ethnic cleansing was not ethnic cleansing.

And when naive old me saw freedom fighters they patiently showed me that they were not freedom fighters, and that resistance was not resistance.

And when, stupidly, I noticed arrogance, oppression and humiliation they benevolently enlightened me so I can see that arrogance was not arrogance, oppression was not oppression, and humiliation was not humiliation.

I saw misery, racism, inhumanity and a concentration camp.

But they told me that they were experts in misery, racism, inhumanity and concentration camps and I have to take their word for it: this was not misery, racism, inhumanity and a concentration camp.

Over the years they’ve taught me so many things: invasion was not invasion, occupation was not occupation, colonialism was not colonialism and apartheid was not apartheid.

They opened my simple mind to even more complex truths that my poor brain could not on its own compute like: “having nuclear weapons” was not “having nuclear weapons,” “not having weapons of mass destruction” was “having weapons of mass destruction.”

And, democracy (in the Gaza Strip) was not democracy.

Having second class citizens (in Israel) was democracy.

So you’ll excuse me if I am not surprised to learn today that there were more things that I thought were evident that are not: peace activists are not peace activists, piracy is not piracy, the massacre of unarmed people is not the massacre of unarmed people.

I have such a limited brain and my ignorance is unlimited.

And they’re so fucking intelligent. Really.
 

 Now, Professor Hage has hit the headlines, so to speak, of the execrable Mondoweiss, for his response to the Anthropological Association of Israel, inviting him to be keynote speaker at its conference.

Not that this refusal should come as much of a surprise to Mondoweiss's readers, for they will have seen here that Professor Hage is a proponent of an academic boycott of Israel!

Professor Hage posted his response to the invitation on Facebook a day or two ago, and it has attracted (when last I looked) 397 likes, 47 comments, and 163 shares there.  It seems all leftist anti-Israel life is exulting, in Australia and overseas (yes, there anti-Israel Israeli-born academics among them).

Dear …

I have spent a bit of time writing this so it is a bit formal. That’s not the intention. It’s more that I want to be as clear as possible about my reasons.

I sincerely appreciate your invitation to give the keynote at the Anthropological Association of Israel. And I accept that it is an invitation made in good faith that emanates from your desire to open up the association to voices that are strongly critical of Israel as it has come to exist in the world today, and that as you say are not heard enough.

I am afraid I have to decline from accepting your invitation. I can’t say I am overjoyed to decline. As I mentioned to you before by temperament I am always inclined and disposed to dialogue, but I have thought hard about what my presence would achieve and I feel that the end result is negative not positive. But in thinking what is positive and what is negative I am thinking of how it impacts on the struggle of the Palestinian people to free themselves of colonialism, not the struggle of Israeli anthropologists to make their society more open minded and receptive. It is a mistake to equate the two even though they might occasionally overlap in terms of interest. You probably don’t want to hear me giving you a full blast of my reasons. And you might even think that you have heard it all before. But I genuinely accept that you want dialogue. And so I want to quickly say why, while I am also all for dialogue, I am not for the dialogue as you are proposing it, even though I am more than flattered about what you say about my work and thankful that you thought of me as a possible keynoter.

Israeli anthropologists face a number of situations that are similar to those we face in other settler colonial environments such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. We are all anthropologists working in a social space that is always already vampirically sucking a native population dry and violently (legally and illegally) blocking its claims to the land. You Israelis have to face the extra situation that your vampiric history is relatively short and new, the population that has been colonised by you is still relatively strong and still making claims of national sovereignty and autonomy over the land. The dominant forces in your society aspire to get to a situation where this will stop being the case. It aims to efface the existence of Palestinians as claimants of sovereignty and it is subjecting them to horrendous inhumane violence of a scale, intensity and permanence that is so beyond acceptable. This is what your own Baruch Kimmerling has beautifully called politicide.

So to me, the beginning of any decolonial anthropology is to be anti-politicidal. It has to be concerned with how to stop this horrendous violence and how to give presence and political and social power to the colonised. It is not about making the anthropologist of the colonising society more liberal and open minded and capable of confronting difference. This I feel is all what me presenting a keynote for your organisation would achieve: some conservatives will be upset. But that’s because they are dumb. Then there will be the intelligent liberals who will leave saying "what a feeling. I have heard a genuinely and authentically anti-Zionist intellectual with really confronting views, and with an Arab background to boot. It was a really enriching experience, I must be so open minded and groovy." This does not and never did help the colonised. There will be a minority however who will fully understand these limitations and who will genuinely want to move towards the territory of decolonising anthropology. Those, I would love to work with, but I don’t believe the AAI is the best frame for this to be done.

I have many ideas of what a dialogue towards establishing a decolonial Israeli anthropology would entail. The first among them would be for Israeli anthropologists to refuse to belong to an organisation that symbolically absences Palestine from its name, or to belong to an organization that accepts anthropologists from the settlements among its ranks. If I was invited to Israel by an organisation that calls itself the Anthropological association of Israel/Palestine, that would be a good beginning. I will see it as indicating an aspiration to confront the mono-national mono-religious and eliminationist tendencies of the state. I would be happy to meet with Israeli anthropologists who aspire for such a decolonial politics. And it would be a delight for me to discuss with them possible strategies. Given that the numbers in the foreseeable future will be small perhaps we can meet in a Palestinian café and invite some local Palestinian anthropologists to participate in a dialogue about radically different non-colonial directions. I would genuinely be happy to take part in something like this.

This situation actually reminds me a bit of the politics of positive discrimination. When you are aiming for structural change, your politics can be incommensurate with individual interests and unfair to genuinely nice people. That is, you can be aiming for more women in management and you end up discriminating against a genuinely charming feminist guy. Likewise, I want to participate in dialogues that open up the space for more Palestinian anthropologists to be as subjects and participants in shaping the future of anthropology in Israel/Palestine, even if I have to forgo interacting with excellent, open-minded and charming Israeli anthropologists. [Emphasis added]

 The question might be asked: since Professor Hage's antipathy to Israel is a matter of public record, why did the Anthropological Association of Israel extend their invitation to him in the first place?

Update: 
Ghassan Hage on Facebook (20 Sept.)
 I had initially asked the president of the Israeli Anthropological Association who invited me, Nir Avieli, if he wanted his invitation published. As I didn't get an initial response i assumed he didn't. But he has sent me his considered response to my reply. So here they are both for the records. As you can see both my response and Nir's are polite and even cordial despite the differences, and if people want to comment, I'd rather if people keep the same tone of exchange.

Response to the president of the Israeli Anthropological Association’s invitation to give a keynote at their annual conference and the president’s reply

Dear Nir
I have spent a bit of time writing this so it is a bit formal. That’s not the intention. It’s more that I want to be as clear as possible about my reasons.
I sincerely appreciate your invitation to give the keynote at the Anthropological Association of Israel. And I accept that it is an invitation made in good faith that emanates from your desire to open up the association to voices that are strongly critical of Israel as it has come to exist in the world today, and that as you say are not heard enough.
I am afraid I have to decline from accepting your invitation. I can’t say I am overjoyed to decline. As I mentioned to you before by temperament I am always inclined and disposed to dialogue, but I have thought hard about what my presence would achieve and I feel that the end result is negative not positive. But in thinking what is positive and what is negative I am thinking of how it impacts on the struggle of the Palestinian people to free themselves of colonialism, not the struggle of Israeli anthropologists to make their society more open minded and receptive. It is a mistake to equate the two even though they might occasionally overlap in terms of interest. You probably don’t want to hear me giving you a full blast of my reasons. And you might even think that you have heard it all before. But I genuinely accept that you want dialogue. And so I want to quickly say why, while I am also all for dialogue, I am not for the dialogue as you are proposing it, even though I am more than flattered about what you say about my work and thankful that you thought of me as a possible keynoter.
Israeli anthropologists face a number of situations that are similar to those we face in other settler colonial environments such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. We are all anthropologists working in a social space that is always already vampirically sucking a native population dry and violently (legally and illegally) blocking its claims to the land. You Israelis have to face the extra situation that your vampiric history is relatively short and new, the population that has been colonised by you is still relatively strong and still making claims of national sovereignty and autonomy over the land. The dominant forces in your society aspire to get to a situation where this will stop being the case. It aims to efface the existence of Palestinians as claimants of sovereignty and it is subjecting them to horrendous inhumane violence of a scale, intensity and permanence that is so beyond acceptable. This is what your own Baruch Kimmerling has beautifully called politicide.
So to me, the beginning of any decolonial anthropology is to be anti-politicidal. It has to be concerned with how to stop this horrendous violence and how to give presence and political and social power to the colonised. It is not about making the anthropologist of the colonising society more liberal and open minded and capable of confronting difference. This I feel is all what me presenting a keynote for your organisation would achieve: some conservatives will be upset. But that’s because they are dumb. Then there will be the intelligent liberals who will leave saying "what a feeling. I have heard a genuinely and authentically anti-Zionist intellectual with really confronting views, and with an Arab background to boot. It was a really enriching experience, I must be so open minded and groovy." This does not and never did help the colonised. There will be a minority however who will fully understand these limitations and who will genuinely want to move towards the territory of decolonising anthropology. Those, I would love to work with, but I don’t believe the AAI is the best frame for this to be done.
I have many ideas of what a dialogue towards establishing a decolonial Israeli anthropology would entail. The first among them would be for Israeli anthropologists to refuse to belong to an organisation that symbolically absences Palestine from its name, or to belong to an organization that accepts anthropologists from the settlements among its ranks. If I was invited to Israel by an organisation that calls itself the Anthropological association of Israel/Palestine, that would be a good beginning. I will see it as indicating an aspiration to confront the mono-national mono-religious and eliminationist tendencies of the state. I would be happy to meet with Israeli anthropologists who aspire for such a decolonial politics. And it would be a delight for me to discuss with them possible strategies. Given that the numbers in the foreseeable future will be small perhaps we can meet in a Palestinian café and invite some local Palestinian anthropologists to participate in a dialogue about radically different non-colonial directions. I would genuinely be happy to take part in something like this.
This situation actually reminds me a bit of the politics of positive discrimination. When you are aiming for structural change, your politics can be incommensurate with individual interests and unfair to genuinely nice people. That is, you can be aiming for more women in management and you end up discriminating against a genuinely charming feminist guy. Likewise, I want to participate in dialogues that open up the space for more Palestinian anthropologists to be as subjects and participants in shaping the future of anthropology in Israel/Palestine, even if I have to forgo interacting with excellent, open-minded and charming Israeli anthropologists.
Best wishes,
Ghassan
----------------------------------------------------------
Dear Ghassan
Thank you for your frank mail.
I am disappointed but I am certainly not surprised by your decision to decline my invitation.
Colleagues I consulted in Israel and abroad told me that inviting a Palestinian and/or Middle Eastern anthropologist as a keynote for the Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA) annual meeting would be futile if not foolish: “no self-respecting Palestinian or Arab intellectual would accept such invitation”, they said. “Yes”, they added, “Edward Said came. But that was Said and the visit took place in a very different time”. Previous IAA presidents also confided in me that they made genuine efforts to invite prominent Arab anthropologists in the past: invitations that were declined.
As I wrote in my original email, I do hope my invitation was not too bold, or indeed, insensitive. But because we intend to hold the annual meeting in Kfar Qasim, an Arab town known for its tragic history – I thought this might indicate our serious intentions to create genuine dialogue, rather than simply feature you as a fig-leaf for liberal minded pious anthropologists.
I also felt that not even trying to invite you would be yet another indication of how we in the academic community have succumbed to the ruling regime. Giving up without even trying seems to plague the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is especially the case when we consider the death of the “the Israeli left” over the past decades, whose members once struggled for peace and reconciliation, but have now lost all political power and hope. We now make an invisible, silent few – the academia is perhaps the last bastion.
In this sense, I hope our email exchange was a forgone conclusion, though I respect and understand your decision. To be honest, I don’t think we really disagree on the fundamentals: The IAA has officially condemned the occupation of Palestine and called upon the Israeli government to stop the military control and human and civil rights abuse and engage in peace talks.
And as you convincingly argue:
“Israeli anthropologists face a number of situations that are similar to those we face in other settler colonial environments such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. We are all anthropologists working in a social space that is always already vampirically sucking a native population dry and violently (legally and illegally) blocking its claims to the land”.
Indeed, you and I face similar difficulties and dilemmas (for instance, working in public universities in Israel or Australia). The way I understand it, our privileged position demands that we critically engage in discussing sociopolitical problems, however intractable. I also feel that this is our only way of influencing others (our students or, at least, some of them) and, perhaps, having an impact.
I also agree with you that the main question at hand is what would be the most effective way of assisting the Palestinians in their struggle for freedom and independence. In a week in which the US administration committed 37 BILLION DOLLARS of the US tax payers money in military assistance to Israel, the largest ever sum of money given by the US to any foreign country, it is clear that the occupation of Palestine is an American interest and that the occupation is fueled by American tax payers. It is, of course, also maintained politically by the US and its allies, not least ‘Fortress Australia’: perhaps the most loyal of US allies.
The way I understand it, the most effective way of assisting the Palestinians in their struggle is by demanding that the US and its allies stop supporting the occupation. I realize that anthropologists anywhere have very little political power, but this is probably the only way to help the Palestinians.
Talking to Israeli anthropologists might not be very effective, but I do believe it can generate a productive discussion, to the chagrin of the ruling power.
I could have written now that “I look forward for better times”, but this would be just another self-righteous and meaningless phrase. For lack of better words I’ll just say that I’ll keep on trying…
Sincerely
Nir Avieli
President, The Israeli Anthropological Association

In Sydney Soon, A Campus Law School Hass Fest

The rather squalid all-day event that's going to take place in the Staff Common Room of the Law Faculty  at the University of New South Wales campus in the Sydney suburb of Randwick on 24 April was excitedly touched on about a fortnight ago in a video (I wouldn't bother, if I were you) by a veteran Aussie Israel-basher of Jewish birth, Vivienne Porzsolt (of "Jews Against The Occupation", one of those would-fit-into-a-telephone-booth outfits).

With former NSW parliamentarian (Greens, need you ask!) and publisher Sylvia Hale (the Hale half of Hale and Iremonger), Ms Porzsolt went on the Flotilla in 2010 and had a nice little adventure.
In the video mentioned above she sits alongside Peter Slezak, another Israel-bashing "as-a-Jew", who's going to be a speaker at the Randwick hate-fest.

The keynote speaker will be the notorious Israel-bashing Ha'aretz journalist Amira Hass, who's currently already in Australia working her mischief magic among the we-hate-Israel set.  (Sorry, folks, this dinner to meet her in Sydney is all booked out!)

Opening the event will be legal eagle Hal Wootten (born 1922, so they'd better provide him with a comfy chair), founder of the UNSW law school.

Spreading Hass among the usual suspects

Regarding the UNSW hate fest (admission free), we learn:

“The symposium Law, Rights and Resistance in Occupied Palestine is organised by postgraduate students, with support from a group of academic staff members at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). This event will examine and discuss the extent to which contemporary public international legal frameworks including international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international criminal law, allow or disallow forms of resistance to occupied rule in Palestine. As well as a legal focus, it will feature theoretical, post-colonial, historical, political and anthropological perspectives on the notion of ‘resistance’. We believe an interdisciplinary approach is necessary in order to accentuate and engage with the diverse forms of resistance that take place in Palestine as a consequence of the nature and character of the occupation.

Some of the specific concerns that will be addressed include:

Whether there is a legal right, as opposed to a mere moral right to resist occupied rule under international law and, if so, under what conditions it can be exercised.

 What characterises the right to resist? What forms can it take? What are the boundaries of resistance?

 What are some manifestations of daily forms of resistance and civil disobedience from occupied Palestine?

 How has Palestinian resistance to occupation evolved over time?

 What is the role of academia, particularly scholars in international law, in perpetuating or resisting the occupation?

We warmly welcome scholars, students and the general public to attend this important event..."

 Programme here

Although not an overt Israel-delegitimising event like the now-cancelled University of Southampton Law School conference, this is still an odiously one-sided, unbalanced event that lacks the differences of opinion one expects at an academic symposium.

It is simply and blatantly an exercise in propaganda

Little wonder that

'One university staff member told -the antipodean news service] J-Wire: “This one-sided anti-Israel bash dressed up an academic symposium is very concerning”.'

Jake Lynch's Nemesis Revealed: The Redhead With The Balls

So here she is, the lady in my previous post dubbed "carrot top".

This footage is taken from a long post in support of Jake Lynch by Michael Brull, an incorrigible Israel-bashing Aussie Jewish leftist whose articles sometimes appear on the ABC's "The Drum".

See a snippet of his mindset in the dialogue I reproduced in this recent Facebook exchange with another Jewish leftist:

"Get Out! Get Out! ... Get Lost!":

"This is the woman who assaulted me":

"This is going to cost you a lot of money..."

The Carrot Top, The Crown Jewels, & The Colonel

Associate Professor Jake Lynch – the Israel-hating director of Sydney University's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies whose c.v. includes a stint as a broadcaster with the BBC – continues to be the cynosure of numerous Australians within and without the country's Jewish community as the result of his disgraceful conduct at the talk a week ago at Sydney University by the heroic Colonel Richard Kemp (pictured, when commanding Britain's forces in Afghanistan).

Much attention (and not a little merriment) has focused on Lynch's claim that the reason he pulled a five dollar note from his shirt pocket and waved it in the face of a Jewish audience member is because she ("a lady with dyed orange-red hair, probably in her 50s" according to him but perhaps in her 60s according to an equally anti-Israel part-time member of his department) kicked him  – twice – in "the meat and two veg" (that part of the anatomy known in Pommieland, whence Lynch comes, as "the crown jewels").

Some, while relishing the image of such a well-placed move on the "ninja nana's" part (there have been claims she's in her 70s), have questioned the recipient's story, maintaining that had the carrot top really struck him where he claims he would have been doubled up in acute pain rather than responding with a thrust of the paper stuff.

Meanwhile the colonel, whose letter of protest to the vice-chancellor of Sydney University went viral at the weekend, has reiterated his disgust at the behaviour he encountered, writing (inter alia) in today's issue of The Australian newspaper:

'I spoke for about 20 minutes to an audience of about 100 students, academics and guests. A group of about a dozen people then stormed into the lecture theatre and started yelling at me and the audience through a megaphone, accusing me of “supporting genocide”, and trying to shut down the lecture.....

I heard one of the protesters yell support for the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a vile group that is banned in many countries, whose theo-fascist values seem to me entirely at odds with the progressive values these students claim to support.

I have addressed the UN commission of inquiry on the conduct of the parties to the Israel-Hamas war. I have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation and recognised the extraordinary measures to which Israel has gone to avoid civilian casualties when faced with an enemy that militarises civilian infrastructure and shields its fighters with the bodies of the civilians it claims to defend. US General Martin Dempsey, the highest ranking officer in the US Army, sent a fact-finding team to Israel and concluded the US ­forces had lessons to learn from the measures taken by Israel to spare the lives of Palestinian civilians as far as possible, often at the expense of its own soldiers.

By daring to defend the actions of the Jewish state and condemning Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both designated terrorist organisations, I was considered fair game for the protesters. This is indicative of a pervasive culture among certain sections of university students and staff in Britain, and clearly in Australia, where to speak objectively about Israel is to court harassment, thuggery and violence. The behaviour of the protesters and the academics was an affront to the core ideals of the university
 – the freedom to speak, the freedom to assemble and the freedom to engage with ideas and opinions.'

Regarding the incident involving the lady:

'I spoke for about 20 minutes to an audience of about 100 students, academics and guests. A group of about a dozen people then stormed into the lecture theatre and started yelling at me and the audience through a megaphone, accusing me of “supporting genocide”, and trying to shut down the lecture.

Dr Riemer

The protesters occupied the lecture theatre, intimidated members of the audience and were intent on preventing the exchange of views my lecture was intended to facilitate. Two of the academics [ Lynch and Dr Nicholas Riemer, according to the colonel's above-mentioned letter] then joined them, one of whom I saw badgering an elderly woman who objected to him photographing her on his iPhone. When she tried to push the iPhone out of her face he grabbed her arm forcibly, and appeared to hurt her. When she retaliated physically, the academic – an associate professor – waved a $5 note in her face and the face of a Jewish student....

 This protest had clear anti-­Semitic undertones. The audience was predominantly Jewish and the protesters knew that. Often anti-Semitic abuse and ­hatred is dressed up as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist action. This resonated that way, with vicious shouting and intimidation against a group of Jews and brandishing money around invoking the stereotype of the “greedy Jew”.

As for Associate Professor Jake Lynch, shown to be so adept at conflict with an elderly woman, his value to the university and its students would be enhanced by listening to those who have seen real conflict and have risked their lives to secure peace.'

Also commenting about the Lynch incident again is Glen Falkenstein, policy analyst at the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), who writes, inter alia:

'Suppose a person jumps up in a lecture theatre, stands on his chair, waves money at an old Jewish woman and yells in the faces of students – would such a person be permitted to remain in the room? Now imagine it was a professor that did these things – should such a person be allowed to remain at the University? 

Associate Professor Jake Lynch, Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, is under investigation by the University of Sydney for allegedly intimidating attendees at a lecture and reportedly thrusting money in the face of more than one Jewish person....

I spoke with a number of Jewish students after the protest; they were clearly shaken. They told me that Associate Professor Lynch had shouted in their faces. A photo has been posted online seeming to show Lynch holding money in the face of a Jewish student, with reports of another photo showing him thrusting a five dollar note in the face of what he termed an "older lady," believed to be 75 year old Jewish woman....

The former Federal Labor MP Peter Baldwin was present at the lecture. He wrote to the Vice-Chancellor of the University, stating: "this was a truly frightening episode ... [Sydney University is] becoming increasingly poisonous and fearful for identifiably Jewish students."....

Needless to say, an adult waving money in a Jewish person's face, regardless of their motivation, would be a confronting and alienating situation. Associate Professor Lynch responded to the allegations by claiming he waved the money in the woman's face to warn her that he "would have no option but to sue her for assault if she carried on – which would cost her a lot of money." ....

A petition started by the Jewish student union calling for Associate Professor Jake Lynch to be sacked has already attracted over 5,000 signatures. It alleges he breached the University's code of conduct, which requires that staff treat students with "respect, impartiality, courtesy and sensitivity" and that "Lynch has a history of supporting harassment and discrimination against Jewish students."

 A Sydney University spokesperson commented: "The University is deeply concerned about events surrounding a protest on campus and has commenced an investigation into the incidents."The protesters, accused of disrupting a lecture, intimidating Jewish students, filming them without their permission and shouting at them could face expulsion from the University.

 A professor accused of the same, and of thrusting money in the faces of a Jewish student and an elderly Jewish woman, needs to be taken just as seriously. If the professor and the other demonstrators acted so disgracefully, the University has a responsibility to protect the welfare of its students and its own reputation.'

As for that petition mentioned by Falkenstein, many of the "reasons for signing" indicate that many Jewish students at the University of Sydney have long felt harassed and intimidated by the man who is its focus.

See and sign the petition here

Update: Carrot Top revealed in my next post.

At Sydney University, Anti-Israel Lynch Mob Disrupts Colonel Kemp's Lecture (updated to include video)

Breaking news here in Australia: before any mention of  Israel or Palestine was uttered, a mob of about fifteen Israel-hating students  invaded a campus lecture hall this afternoon (it's now early evening) to disrupt an advertised talk by that heroic pro-Israel gentleman, Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan.

(Scroll down for video)

As described by Glen Falkenstein, a policy analyst/staff writer at the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), for J-Wire: 

 '.... Kemp began his talk with a brief explanation of his career and a joke about England’s cricket loss to Bangladesh on Monday. He went on to discuss non-state militant groups in Ireland and Afghanistan and the obligations of soldiers when engaging with civilians and civilian groups.

Before he could go into any detail or discuss any other issues, he was interrupted by over a dozen students bursting into the lecture hall screaming “Richard Kemp, you can’t hide, you support genocide.”

Photo credit: David Sokol/J-Wire

A demonstrator with a megaphone drowned out any attempts by the moderator to get the lecture back on track. Protestors wrestled with security guards who had asked them to leave and were then forced to remove them. Protestors stood on chairs, began to push students and shout loudly at those who objected to their behaviour.

Professor Jake Lynch, the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) and an ardent opponent of Israel, shouted in the faces of students, including at a senior officer of the Jewish student union. He then proceeded to stand on chairs and film attendees. Lynch screamed that attempts to remove the protestors was a violent attack on freedom of speech by security guards. When another academic suggested that he ask a question, Lynch responded that was not what this is about, only later opting to ask a question when invited by the Colonel.

Photo credit: David Sokol/J-Wire

One student commented that Kemp “hadn’t even mentioned Israel or Palestine” in the time he had to talk. Another student mentioned that she did not have strong views on either side of this issue, was studying international relations and had come expecting a talk, not an ambush.

After about 20 minutes of shouting, the protestors were finally removed from the hall, having objected loudly to their treatment by the security guards and some others present. Kemp, resuming as if nothing had happened, continued to speak on engagement with non-civilian groups in armed conflict. Concluding his talk, Kemp briefly addressed what he termed a “commercial break.”

“This protest was about my perspective on the IDF… I was in Israel during the 2014 summer conflict and I do believe that the IDF in their attack on Hamas in Gaza… were doing everything they could to protect civilians… People have told me I am wrong, but no one has told me what more steps Israel could take to minimize civilian casualties.” '

Glen Falkenstein adds that Jewish historian Professor Suzanne Rutland, of Sydney University, who attended the lecture, told him in an interview:

'I feel that the demonstration really showed clearly that the anti-Israel group speaks in slogans without any sort of understanding of the intricacies of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and without any sort of acknowledgement that when they stand there chanting, “Free Palestine,” what they mean is the dismantling of the Zionist entity which means genocide against Israel’s Jewish population.

Accusing Israel of committing genocide has no academic basis whatsoever; they even said the Colonel (Kemp) was responsible for genocide. I strongly support legitimate criticism and when we teach about Israel we try to present a critical, balanced voice which is part of academic learning.

 What I think the demonstration represented was the struggle faced by myself and others on campus who are opposed to Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions. While we try to follow the rules of polite debate, the BDS supporters will often not allow an alternative voice and this is what happened during the lecture.

 Given the anti-Israel bias on campus we were grateful Dr Gil Merom agreed to chair the function and advertise it to his students.'

And Peter Wertheim, Executive Director of the ECAJ, told JWire: 

“The attempt by about 15 students and academics to shout down and censor a public lecture at the University of Sydney by Col Richard Kemp, an internationally renowned, much-decorated expert on military and security affairs, is an utter disgrace.

 Their attempts to bully campus security personnel who restored order was also shameful.  These  are the same people who have on numerous occasions invoked the principle of academic freedom to justify their engagement in political advocacy on campus.

Their hypocrisy is now obvious.  For them, academic freedom does not apply to views they disagree with.   They are cowards who are afraid of the truth.

Fortunately, the lecture was resumed after a 15 minute disruption and Richard Kemp’s presentation was so compelling that even academics who had participated in the earlier protest asked him questions and were given comprehensive answers.

The ECAJ is proud to have facilitated the lecture.”

[Emphasis added]

Here's a video (hat tip: Ian):

A jewel of an item from The Australian given on Shirlee Finn's piece here

See also here

P.S. Lynch in action last month:

BDS & Blisters: Fanatics Afoot

This morning in glorious sunshine outside the Sydney Opera House, a gaggle of As-a-Jews gathered to give an Israeli academic (above, right) at Wollongong University a warm send-off:

But not, of course, to Israel.

No, this ex-pat's Argentinian-born Israel-educated political scientist Dr Marcelo Svirsky, and like the As-a-Jews, and their leftist cohorts, a number of whom were also on hand to wish him well, he's an activist against the little Jewish State.

With pack on back, and no doubt with left foot forward, he's set off on the long walk from Sydney to Canberra, a walk which will apparently last for ten days (other BDS fanatics are expected to join him at various stages of the journey) and for which, it's said, he's been training for months.

Don't forget the corn plasters, mate.

The purpose of the trek is to present the following petition to the federal House of Representatives, in the hope that Australia's will be the first western government officially to endorse BDS.

Presumably because they belong to the other chamber, Senators Lee Rhiannon and Nick Xenophon, who can usually be relied upon to throw a brickbat or three at the Zionist Entity, have declined to introduce the petition, making some BDSers mutter darkly that they have betrayed the cause.

Above: the intrepid BDSer departing Wollongong for Sydney.

Bye bye, mate.

Guess you won't be in shul for the High Holydays, then.

Don't forget the corn plasters.

And be careful not to wallow in any lies swallow any flies.