In Oz, Aid & Comfort For The Enemy At Balaclava: Jewish Fringe Groups Attack The JNF

Balaclava Railway Station lies in the heart of Jewish Melbourne, in Carlisle Street.

Like a number of thoroughfares in the district, Balaclava is a neighbourhood named after battles in the Crimean War, which was a very recent memory when the district, some miles beyond central Melbourne (founded in  1835) was being developed and settled.

The other day, a vicious flyer was handed out during a rally at the station, held jointly by the Melbourne cell of a fringe group known as Jews Against The Occupation (of which Sydney flotilla/flytilla activist and occasional PressTV interviewee Vivienne Porzsolt is undoubtedly the best-known (some would say "notorious" representative) in conjunction with an apparently new group called Jews Against The JNF (pictured here with the BDS crowd last September).

The flyers, choc-a-bloc with the usual tropes against Israel, call for "the charity status of the JNF to be revoked in Australia" and "for Australians to break ties with the JNF".

Although at first glance some people might find the platform of Jews Against The Occupation laudable, its platform demands the Right of Return to the so-called Palestinian Refugees, which if enacted would of course spell the end of the State of Israel.  Needless to say, there is nothing in the platform about a reciprocal right, or compensation, for the Jews who fled from or were forced out of Arab countries, the "Jewish Nakba"  which, thanks to people such as the talented person behind the Point of No Return Blog, is beginning to receive the publicity it deserves.

Jews Against The JNF are equally blinkered, indeed mischievous.  "The JNF-KKL [Keren Kayemet LeIsrael] continues to serve as a global fundraiser for for Israeli ethnic cleansing. occupation and apartheid," they inveigh, thus echoing some of the most treacherous canards made against the Jewish State.

Let's hope Jewish youngsters in Australia manage to withstand the propaganda of such groups, unlike some Jewish youngsters in Britain (even pupils of Jewish day schools), on whom a constant drip drip of anti-Israel demonisation in the media is having a deleterious effect, and are being led astray by pernicious but plausible slurs and falsehoods.

For, as its Chief Executive Officer argues here, the campaign against the JNF(and of course the UK Greens are part of it) is misplaced.

"Prejudiced Fanatics Who Should Look Into Their Soul": Aussie MP On The BDS Brigade

Jewish politician Michael Danby, a well-known Labour member of the federal House of Representatives in Canberra, where he sits for Melbourne Ports, has been deeply and prominently involved in pro-Israel activism since his student days in Melbourne in  the 1970s.

"These people are prejudiced fanatics who should look into their soul," Mr Danby, who chairs Australia's Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, has justifiably observed of the mob who (as videos I posted show) demonstrated raucously and bitterly outside the Max Brenner chocolate shop in central Melbourne on 1 July, when several policemen attempting to keep order were injured.

He continued: "While 1500 people are murdered in Syria, they launch their own sad little attack on a chocolate shop because it has stores in Israel.

 It’s a bit rich. Almost as rich as one of Max Brenner’s delicious Danish Toffee Hot Chocolates. I urge the good people of Melbourne to warm up over winter by savouring Max Brenner’s delicious delights.

 Boycotts of – and attacks on – Jewish commerce like this belong in the darkest chapters of our history books not in the shopping centres of Melbourne in 2011."

Noting that the BDS chanted "From the River to the Sea," Hamas’s taunting warcry for an Islamic state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, Danby rightly stated.

"These people are not in favour of a Two State Solution. Hatred motivates these calls for elimination of the Jewish State."

According to a report by the antipodean J-Wire news service, he added that in the coming weeks the Labor Party will display a series of pro-Israel manifestations in line with the views of mainstream Australians, "90% of whom were sickened by the fanatics attacking police and the Israeli franchise."

Disgusted by the conduct of the BDSers choc-a-bloc with hate, Kevin Rudd, Australia's Minister For Foreign Affairs, last week joined Michael Danby for something sweet at Max Brenner's in Melbourne (they are pictured  above at the entrance, Mr Danby on the left of the photo).

It seems that Mr Rudd was especially moved by an article in the Sydney Morning Herald by the well-known Australian public intellectual Dr Gerard Henderson, a conservative columnist and executive director of the Sydney Institute, who's a supporter of Israel: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/jews-know-acceptance-still-has-its-exceptions-20110711-1haka.html

According to J-Wire, Max Brenner’s management has pointed out that despite the antics of the BDSers 26 Max Brenner franchise stores operate in  Australia and there are queues of people waiting to enter some of the new stores in Queensland.

Talking of Queensland, here's a bunch of "prejudiced fanatics" marching a few days ago in central Brisbane against Israel's "apartheid wall" – the security barrier that's been rather effective at protecting Israelis against attacks by homicidal maniacs with bombs strapped to their bodies.  These BDSers are egged on by "Justice for Palestine" activist Kathy Newman, a Socialist Alliance candidate at several elections who's expressed solidarity with the arrested "Boycott Israel 19" of  Melbourne on 1 July and has foreshadowed a protest outside Max Brenner in Brisbane next month: http://boycottisrael19.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/solidarity-from-brisbane/

Hat tip for the video: reader Shirlee

Thanks, Mates, That's Bonzer!

Photograph by Sylvie Le Clezio: Source "The Australian"

I've just had my faith in the sound commonsense of at least a swathe of the great Aussie public restored by a number of comments on an online newspaper report about the "flytilla" visit of Greens ex-MP Sylvia Hale (pictured here, on the right of the photo, during their mutual odyssey along with fellow pro-Palestinian activist Vivienne Porzsolt, who was also detained at Ben-Gurion Airport but was released on bail following a successful appeal by two Israeli "human rights lawyers".).

Says one of the comments:

'These individuals are an absolute disgrace with their grandstanding tactics and wasteful expenditure. They would be well advised to spend their time and money on the people suffering from the horrendous effects of drought in Africa rather than on jousting at windmills in relation to the Palestinian issue - although members of the Palestinian fraternity in Gaza may not exactly be on easy street, they are in a much better space than the folks suffering from starvation as a result of the effects of the terrible drought conditions in Africa....'

 Says another:

'Maybe they should try their luck flying into Syria to protest the thousands of deaths going on there instead of Gaza and the West Bank which are busy building new shopping malls and luxury hotels. I doubt whether their reception will be as "friendly" as $410 bail.'

Others are less polite, but no less valid for that:

'Ratbags, sticking their noses into another country's business.Typical of a wacky Green. Absolutely no idea about how the world works outside LA LA Land.'

 'Deport her by all means... but please, not back to Australia.'  http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/former-mp-sylvia-hale-delays-deportation-from-israel/story-e6freuzi-1226094213562

But expect more fun and games (and maximum publicity) ahead.  In Green Left Weekly Pip Hinman, another anti-Israel stalwart, quotes Vivienne Porzsolt as saying:

"We are concerned that the Minister of the Interior is trying to subvert the decision of the court by making it practically impossible for us to go to the West Bank. It would mean that the Occupied Palestinian Territories really don't have a separate status from Israel under Israeli law. But if it means we have 48 hours to get into the West Bank and then apply for another Israeli visa when we come back, that would be great.

But, if it means we do have 48 hours to get into the West Bank and then apply for another Israeli visa when we come back, that would be great.

Anyone may now go to Israel and then request entry to the West Bank. We anticipate possibly thousands of people availing themselves of the opportunity, and wonder just how the Israeli authorities will deal with that!"  http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/48171

No Birthday Tea With Mazin Qumsiyeh For Aussie Flotilla-Turned-Flytilla Pair

Poor Sylvia Hale.  The ex-Marrickville councillor and former New South Wales state parliamentarian was thwarted in her expectation of sailing to Gaza aboard the Canadian ship Tahrir by the Greek authorities, like fellow Sydneysider flotilla participants Vivienne Porzsolt and Michael Coleman, as well as Perth-based Alex Whisson, convenor of Friends of Palestine WA.

 As a publicity gimmick, Coleman paddled a kayak to impede the Greek coastguard turning back the Tahrir, and was duly fined. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1020539--kayaktivists-from-gaza-flotilla-found-guilty-but-released

But Sylvia, with Vivienne, flew into Tel Aviv today (Tuesday) tp participate in the so-called "Welcome to Palestine" scheme.  Alas, it seems that when the Israeli authorities were told of the pair's intent, the Aussies were detained at the airport for four hours and face deportation to Athens on the first available flight.  So instead of meeting Palestinian activist Mazin Qumsiyeh in Marrickville's sister city of Bethlehem  - Qumsiyeh's a former genetics professor in the USA who has suggested that Jesus was the first Palestinian martyr and who has, among other things, written a book called Sharing The Land of Canaan - Sylvia has been spending her 69th birthday cooling her heels at the pleasure of Israeli security.

Still, I'm sure the Israel-demonising Greens movement back in Oz will be making the most of this setback, spinning it as yet another example of Zionist perfidy.

In fact one of them, a twenty-something blogger ("I write mostly about politics and social justice topics. My current focus is primarily on writing about Israel-Palestine, and the expansion of the coal seam gas industry in Australia") already has.

And so has Greens MP David Shoebridge.
 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-13/greens-mp-and-activist-detained-in-israel/2792348
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/two-australians-detained-in-israel-20110712-1hciz.html
http://www.kateausburn.com/2011/07/12/democratic-israel-detains-human-rights-activists-seeking-to-visit-palestine/
See also http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=6&x_article=1383

As for the Greens and Israel, one of my favourite verdicts was made in a Greenie NSW newspaper, The Byron Shire Echo, by Geoff Pahoff, who wrote inter alia to its editor:

'You complain about your "experience with the pro-Israel lobby". Given that you have never published anything that could be remotely described as "pro-Israel", it can only be that you never publish opinions that differ from yours or the "experience" you claim is very limited indeed. None at all. What is your problem? .... Who do you mean by this "lobby" anyway? Israel is solidly supported by every major political party in our country. As you would expect from a liberal democracy for the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and the only state there that provides and guarantees full political and civil rights for Arabs. Only some of your party's candidates and some of "One Nation"'s attack Israel so obsessively.Why? If by the "pro-Israel lobby", you mean Australian Jews, then say so. We need to know. About you. Not them.

 It is impossible to defend Israel, and the democratic secular Zionist principles that underpin it, without being accused of racism. Sooner or later it always happens. Always. It is also true that much of the incessant attacks on Israel, especially from the political extremes, and from militant Islamism, is driven by antisemitism. This cannot be honestly denied. It is everywhere.

....The situation in Gaza can be summed up in a sentence. Israel has the stark choice of either attempting a military blockade or simply allowing Hamas to become as lethally armed as Hezbollah. Gaza is an Iranian colony ruled by a subsidiary of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their grievance with Israel has nothing at all to do with "occupation". Gaza is not "occupied". Their grievance has everything to do with the fact that Israel is free, liberal and democratic and, above all, with the fact that Israel is the Jewish state. They say so again and again.

Nor do I accept that for you this is about the "Palestinians". The old hard left that now control your party in this state does not give a rat's arse about the Palestinians. They never have and they have been around for a long time. If they gave a damn at all they would be hollering from the rooftops for the liberation of these tragic people from the death grip of Hamas. For them, this is not about the Palestinians at all. Even less is it about the millions of people from Tunisia to Syria and beyond right now risking their lives in a desperate brave struggle for some of those freedoms that Israeli Arabs enjoy as of right and have for decades. For the old hard left, this is about something else entirely.'

 (Geoff's letter wasn't published.  See http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/3181)