In Australia, the NIF Hooks a Big 'Un

'Any Jew who endorses the view that Judaism’s most sacred site – formerly occupied by the Jordanians who denied Jews access to worship – is occupied territory is reminiscent of medieval “mosers” (informers), who were ostracized from the religious and social life of the community. Those in J Street, The New Israel Fund and other far left Jewish groups who consider Jewish districts of Jerusalem and Judaism’s holiest site to be “occupied territories” should be regarded as renegades and treated as such.'

So wrote the renowned Isi Leibler, who, with his soaring intelligence (as many readers will know, he graduated from the University of Melbourne with a first-class honors degree in political science, embarked on a doctorate and would have entered the diplomatic service had not fate intervened) and other extraordinary qualities, led the Australian Jewish community for some 25 years before leaving for Jerusalem.  Known for his quick incisive mind, instantaneous grasp of the essence of issues, and his vigorous dedication to the welfare of Israel and world Jewry, he has inveighed several times against the New Israel Fund (NIF), which established a branch in Australia in 2011. 

That organisation's mischief-making has been exposed and ably summarised  by Professor Gerald Steinberg's NGO Monitor here

See also here and here

For NIF Australia see here

There seems little doubt that the leaders of NIF Australia are largely if not exclusively on the political left.  Australian Jewish (JAir radio) broadcaster Michael Burd commented below Shirlee Finn's post here last year:

"Our radio program Nothing Left has been exposing this insidious bunch of anti Israel activists for a long time.

We have had ... experts on our program ...  who have provided facts and figures not just raw opinion . Our Jerusalem based good friend Isi Leibler has on many occasions let our listeners know how NIF are helping our enemies to demonize Israel around the world .

[Fellow broadcaster] Alan Freedman and myself delivered an excellent talk with fantastic feedback at the recent Limmud O . In fact one of NIF supporters also on the board of the far left wing Limmud Oz was in the audience and I think was hugely embarrassed by the overwhelming evidence we supplied. Of course in typical leftist manner all [that] NIF supporters could do was demonize and shoot the messenger...."

NIF Australia now has, it's rumoured, a new cobber in Australia, namely the country's oldest Reform congregation, Temple Beth Israel in Melbourne, established in 1930, and led for decades by two very great men in succession, intellectuals Rabbi Dr Herman Sanger from Berlin, a robust Zionist, and Rabbi Dr John Levi, whose sense of history and love for Eretz Israel and Medinat Israel is palpable.

But now, under its present rabbi and board of management, the Temple is rumoured to on the verge of partnering, so to speak, with NIF Australia and, through the employment of a holder of an NIF Australia Naomi Chazan Fellowship, of acting as a sort of propaganda vehicle for the NIF, at any rate within the congregation itself.

No doubt the Temple, naively, has the best of intentions in pursuing such a path.  But it's disturbing to see it hoodwinked.

To quote Isi Leibler again, interviewed by Michael Burd last year:

"I would urge anybody who has the interest of Israel at heart not to have anything to do with New Israel Fund. It is an organization which is sponsoring enemies of the Jewish people, which is sponsoring groups which are reviling and demonizing the Jewish people. It is sponsoring groups within Israel which are undermining the Zionist vision, and all I can say is you can just look at the list of where their donations go to some of these organizations. It's quite frightening.

I would say to you, any Australians who are committed to the Jewish people, you're not doing the Jewish people or Israel a favor by sponsoring this organization, which, as I say, whatever it may do on the side, you can do it directly.

Give it to the Keren Hayesod or give to any other Jewish organization. You know where it's going to go. But don't give it to an organization a large proportion of whose funds are going to go towards anti-Zionist bodies. In fact, they've even got organizations that they're sponsoring who are calling for a boycott of the territories over the Green Line. To have Jews supporting such a body, it's a great shame. Many of these people are stupid, and some of them are not stupid. Some of them are bad.

... There's no excuse for anybody that is committed to Israel today to be providing money to people that give money to anti-Israeli causes. 

I must tell you, this group is one of the worst of all the groups. You've given only one example, but they send their emissaries all over the world to try and ...demonize Israel, and accuse Israel of war crimes. Everybody has condemned them here. Everybody has condemned them. Even the Israel labor party foreign has condemned these groups... 

All I can say to Australians is please, think twice before you support this group, and don't be conned by the fact that they describe themselves as progressives. There's nothing progressive about supporting elements that are against Israel, and undermine Israel. Believe me, Australia's a pretty good country when it comes to Israel, but you've still got plenty of negative elements in Australia.

You've got the ABC. You've got the Fairfax Media, and you've got quite a few other left-wing media that are doing nothing else except attacking Israel. Why on earth do you have to support an organization which is going to bring people into Israel, into Australia, that are going to help build up the anti-Israeli campaign? What's wrong with people that they can ... It's very hard to visualize and understand how people can behave in this manner. 

Michael: Yes. Finally, on the NIF they bring out a conga line of far left-wing anti-Zionist Jews. One of them they're bringing out recently, or coming, is a very prominent American journalist who happens to be Obama's favorite Jewish journalist. So you can imagine where he's come from. His name is Roger Cohen, and one ... 

Isi: Yes. He writes for the New York Times, and he has written pernicious stuff against Israel, vicious, Vicious, Vicious stuff, and you should also, when he comes out, some people should look up and Google some of the articles he wrote about Iran, because he went to Iran and thought they weren't so bad. Quite nice people, the Iranians. They're bringing this man out to Australia. What for? 

Michael: Yeah, that's right. Cohen wrote that he said that the hospitality he received as a Jew in Iran was a sign that the country was misunderstood. I think that just sums up ... 

Isi: Exactly. Exactly. This sort of a man is being brought to Australia? That's the New Israel Fund ? That is the New Israel Fund. That sums them up."  [Emphasis added]

"As a Growth Industry Antisemitism Has Become Immense ... Jeremy Corbyn is ... a Primitive Troglodyte"

"We are living in a crazy time ... in a world of total and absolute chaos ... As a growth industry antisemitism has become immense ... Europe is under siege ... Jeremy Corbyn is promoting the worst form of leftist antisemitism and he himself is a primitive troglodyte ... "

That's just part of Isi Leibler's compelling introduction to Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld discussing "the British Disease".

To quote the uploader of this long video, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

"In recent months, a large number of extreme anti-Semitic expressions by elected representatives of the British Labour Party have come to light. The publicity has forced Labour, which is under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, to investigate antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism in the party. The antisemitism issue is overshadowed by the many consequences of Brexit, which include a major crisis in Labour.

Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld is the former Chairman of the Board of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. His many books deal with European-Israeli and European-Jewish issues. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism, and the International Leadership Award by the Simon Wiesenthal Center."

 In this recently issued video from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Adam Shay, a Jerusalem Center expert on the cultural boycott of Israel, answers Lenny Ben-David's question "Has the Cultural Boycott of Israel Peaked?"

To quote the uploader:

"In the 2016 concert season, there is no shortage of international performers coming to Israel and virtually all categories are represented. The South African rave-rap duo Die Antwoord, one of the hottest names around, was a prime target for BDS activity. However, the band paid little or no attention to this and once they took the stage in Tel Aviv they told the boycott activists exactly what they thought of them.

Guitar icon Carlos Santana had cancelled his performance in Israel back in 2010 when the cultural boycott was at its height. This is why Santana's recent performance in Tel Aviv was so important. The fact that a performer of iconic status, who has in the past cancelled a performance, now feels it is safe and legitimate to return, tells us that as far as the cultural boycott is concerned, the worst may very well be behind us."

As for the craziness that engulfs Europe, this new article makes grim reading indeed.

Meanwhile:
 Corbyn's little comeuppance
Antisemitism in Belfast

"Obscene and Outrageous": Isi Leibler blasts the ADL's association with J Street

In conversation with Rabbi Mark Golub, veteran world Jewish leader and Jerusalem Post columnist Isi Leibler delivers a sustained and stinging criticism of ADL national director Jonathan Greenblatt for cosying up to "pernicious" J Street, which is doing untold harm to the Jewish People and the State of Israel.

Leibler believes that Greenblatt has not spent sufficient time in Israel, and should do so, seeing what it is enduring for himself rather than choosing to associate with people and ideas that are "undermining" Israel and its national security.

"Israel is standing alone in a sea of barbarism", Leibler says, and if Jewish leaders in the Diaspora stand aside and fail to stick up for Israel against the leftist and Palestinian narrative, "history will condemn them."

 He is askance at the failure of American Jewish leaders strongly and unitedly to stress to Obama that Israel must have defensible borders, and fears that Obama might still give Israel an unacceptable "leaving present".

For more on Leibler versus Goldblatt see here and here and here

Palestinian Nihilism & Israel's Response (video) plus That Old Golden Rule

Two days ago, Mark Regev sets the BBC's Evan Davis straight:

A must-read article on the current situation in Israel by Isi Leibler here

Incidentally, in  his syndicated column today, the admirable Australian commentator Andrew Bolt, in deploring prime minister Malcolm Turnbull's sleight-of-hand, head-in-the-sand insistence that Islam, no less than Christianity, recognises the "Golden Rule" to do unto others as you would be done by, appears, though certainly not from any malicious motive, to believe that the Golden Rule exists only in Christianity.

Not quite true, Andrew.  Look here, for example:

'The Talmud tells a story of Rabbi Hillel, who lived around the time of Jesus. A pagan came to him saying that he would convert to Judaism if Hillel could teach him the whole of the Torah in the time he could stand on one foot. Rabbi Hillel replied, "What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man. That is the whole Torah; the rest is just commentary. Go and study it." (Talmud Shabbat 31a). Sounds a lot like Jesus' "Golden Rule"? But this idea was a fundamental part of Judaism long before Hillel or Jesus. It is a common-sense application of the Torah commandment to love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18), which Rabbi Akiba described as the essence of the Torah (according to Rashi's commentary on the verse).'

"This [Iran] Deal Must Be Killed" & "God Bless America! God Bless Israel!" (videos)

Isi Leibler, who's due to visit Australia soon, has justifiably said of the Iran nuclear "deal" in an interview with the current Australian Jewish News:

"I regard this as the worst diplomatic deal that's been done in our time, and in many ways it's worse than Munich because we're creating a nuclear threshold state out of the most evil terrorist regime.  It has certainly put a lot of pressure on Israel to strengthen itself.  

The region which is already turbulent will become far more turbulent because the Iranians will be using the vast amounts of cash that [the west] are giving them as a bonus to strengthen terrorist bodies at all levels."

His thoughts on the deal are amplified here

On the same theme, here's another widely read and respected Jerusalem Post columnist, the wonderful Caroline Glick, sounding somewhat distraught (as well she might) when addressing the huge #Stop Iran Rally in New York City, and urging that "this deal must be killed":

And here's the equally wonderful Florida ex-Congressman, military hero Lieutenant-Colonel Allen West, an inveterate critic of "the weakling in the White House" flaying Obama and Kerry:

"The Most Thoughtful & Insightful Columnist On The Jewish Scene Today" On Netanyahu, Israeli Politics, Antisemitism & Aliya ...

That's Rabbi Mark Golub's assessment of the incomparable Isi Leibler, who for a quarter of a century bestrode the Australian Jewish communal scene like a Colossus, and who is of course also an international Jewish leader of great renown and prescience, based in Jerusalem.

In this thought-provoking interview Isi Leibler gives his views on Bibi Netanyahu's current visit to Washington (about which the previous post on my blog, by David Singer, is concerned), Obama's "humiliation" of Netanyahu, unparelleled by Obama's treatment of any "rogue state" leader, the attitude of Israeli politicians, the "demonisation" of Netanyahu and his wife in the Israeli press, the Iranian issue, and much more.

 Incidentally, prior to a deep and searching discussion of Israeli politics, parties, political leaders  (including Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and other electoral candidates), and the rabbinate, he cautiously predicts that Netanyahu will be returned as prime minister when Israelis go to the polls on 17 March.

He also gives his views on the attainment of a Two State solution ...  on Netanyahu's attitude to peace  ... on Obama's "frightening" inability to use the phrase "Islamic fundamentalism" in relation to terrorism and his apparent support for the Muslim Brotherhood...

Isi Leibler is worried that the Obama administration will not stand by Israel over the remaining 22 months of its existence, and he fervently wishes American Jewish leaders would abandon their "silence"and publicly speak up against Obama ... He believes that American Jews have in their DNA a "liberal" unwillingness to be critical of a Democrat president and a black one at that.

He contrasts their attitude with his own as leader of the Australian Jewish community, when he was not afraid to take on prime ministers.

Viewing American support as absolutely critical for Israel, he is afraid the Obama's administration will distance itself from Israel and turn towards European initiatives...

Regarding antisemitism, he believes there will always be Jewish communities in Europe ("a cemetery for the Jewish people"), but contends that Netanyahu would have been remiss had he not reminded European Jewry that Israel exists for them, and that in a situation in which Islamic antisemitism is rising and Jews need to be guarded from violence, aliya (although ideally to be undertaken for positive rather than negative reasons) becomes an obligation, if only for the sake of the next generation.

He pours scorn on the attitude that aliya from Europe would give Hitler a posthumous victory given the fact that Jews are obliged to live fearfully and almost as pariahs.

And he also worries, in view of campus antisemitism and the dodgy attitude of some Hillel groups, that a critical situation for Jews may eventually happen there.

Israel, he points out, is "the greatest miracle of our times", a happy society despite its problems, its "crappy politicians", and its whingeing – and it awaits.

"I've Never ... Felt Inhibited By Antisemites": Isi Leibler On His Long & Legendary Career as A World Jewish Leader (video)

"Unquestionably the dominant Jewish lay leader in Australia during the previous quarter century”, as the Encyclopaedia Judaica describes him, Isi Leibler (who celebrated his 80th birthday last month) headed the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) from 1978-95.  He was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1977, an AO (Officer of the Order of Australia) in 1989, and an honorary Doctor of Letters from Deakin University in 1990. 

Well-known around the globe for his regular column in the Jerusalem Post,  Isi Leibler
was born in Antwerp, the eldest of three sons of Polish-born parents, and was brought up in Australia from the age of five. Educated at the Melbourne Boys' High School and the University of Melbourne, where he attained a first-class honors degree in politics, he began doctoral studies with the hope of becoming a diplomat, but abandoned that goal owing to the early death, in 1957, of this father, a diamond merchant.  Eventually, with Melbourne Yiddishist and Bundist Bono Wiener, Isi Leibler founded Jetset Tours, which became the largest travel company in the Southern Hemisphere.

Isi Leibler was involved in Jewish communal leadership from his student days, and became a legendary figure not only on the Australian but on the world Jewish stage, initially for his pioneering involvement in the cause of Soviet Jewry.

See my post here.

In the following video, which I asked Mr Leibler's permission to post here, we see this remarkable Jewish leader in conversation with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren – and also his wife Naomi, daughter of Jerusalem-born Rabbi Israel Porush of Sydney – talking about his life and career, his motivations and achievements,beginning with his dealings with antisemitic schoolboys as a child all the way through to his impressions of Israeli statesmen (learn which one made the deepest impression on him) and other world leaders (learn which one he frankly describes as "an antisemitic bitch") whom he met in the course of his career.

His remarks at the beginning of this long (44 minutes) but irresistible and instructive video
– "I've never in my life felt inhibited by antisemites.  I feel superior to them. I feel I can take them on and I can screw them" – partly sum up their speaker.

"It's About Jews ... Antisemitism Is The Signature Marker Of A Derangement": On Western Liberals abetting Islamic anti-Israelism

In the previous post, Aussie international law expert David Singer, who is of course no stranger to regular readers of this blog, examines Sweden's vote to recognise a Palestinian State.  (Latest here)

Meanwhile, this cartoon (at left), mimicking Ikea "easy home assembly" instructions is doing the Israel-delegitimising rounds on social media, with some cock-a-hoop people actually assuming that the company itself issued them, and proclaiming excitedly that they will only buy Ikea products from now on.  I'm not sure who originated this cartoon, but reader P (hat tip to you, again, sir) found it on the Facebook page of the appalling, BDS-championing so-called Jewish Voice for Peace organisation. 

As David Singer observed not so long ago, in the course of another of his posts, here:

"The incessant media focus on Israel – compounded by misleading and factually incorrect reporting  – has materially contributed to inciting the growth of Jew-hatred world-wide. Organisations such as HonestReporting and CAMERA expose inaccurate reports appearing daily in the most widely read and supposedly reputable international newspapers, television stations, radio networks and on-line publications....

[Richard] Falk's discredited assertion that Israel is a “special case” setting it apart from the world community for special treatment encourages

 the media to keep focusing disproportionately on Israel

Arab and Islamic countries justifying their continuing non-recognition of Israel

Jew-haters and self-hating Jews world-wide maintaining their campaigns denigrating and delegitimising Israel.

 “Jews are always good for news” needs an urgent media rethink and policy overhaul – if increasing Jew-hatred world-wide is to be effectively silenced."

As another Aussie, Isi Leibler, now a proud Israeli, has observed, inter alia, regarding the recent British House of Commons' vote to recognise a Palestinian State : 

'It reflects a growing trend among European countries to encourage Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to pursue his intransigent policy, rejecting meaningful negotiations, refusing to make any concessions and proceeding on the supposition that he has international support to bring Israel to its knees. Regrettably, over the past few months, the Obama administration has been widely perceived as giving a wink to the Europeans to pursue policies toward Israel along these lines, which neither American public opinion nor Congress would endorse.

That such a resolution was even contemplated during the regional meltdown of the past few months has created an Alice-in-Wonderland environment – especially as it failed to even pay lip service to the obligations of the Palestinians. Nor did it acknowledge that both Yasser Arafat and current “peace partner” Mahmoud Abbas rejected offers of 95 percent of the territories formerly occupied by the Jordanians.

Abbas continues to incite to violence and hate and his Fatah party still calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. In recent months, the official PA TV revived the medieval blood libel accusing Jews of using the blood of Palestinian children to make matzot for Passover, promoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and alleged that Israel was poisoning Palestinian water wells. Abbas continues to glorify mass murderers and insists that there will never be an agreement unless Israel accepts the right of return of the five million descendants of Arab refugees, which would entail the end of Israel as a Jewish state. He also reaffirmed his union with Hamas – the globally designated terrorist organization.

The UK parliamentary resolution effectively endorses a state in which the genocidal Hamas occupies a central role and which, according to polls, would emerge victorious in an election. To make matters worse, Abbas has publicly stated that should that occur, he would hand over control of the state to Hamas.

British socialists who voted for the resolution totally disregarded Israel’s security concerns by supporting the establishment of a state based on the 1949 armistice lines. The resolution does not even require Hamas to amend its charter calling for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews throughout the world – a charter that the Nazis would proudly have supported. Nor did it call for demilitarization and cessation of hostilities against Israeli civilians.

Bevin (Time, 18 Feb. 1946)

The implications of passing such a resolution are harrowing, exceeding the worst excesses of perfidious Albion when the anti-Semitic British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin displayed his hostility to the Jews during the last years of the mandate.

One cannot justify such behavior on the basis of ignorance. Clearly, the motivations represent a combination of electoral opportunism, leftist political correctness which transforms Israel the victim into the aggressor, cultural relativism which no longer distinguishes between good and evil and promotes moral equivalency; and above all, an indisputable odor of outright anti-Semitism. 

Some remarks made in the course of the debate were even more despicable than the resolution itself.

There were renewed demands for an arms embargo, calls to intensify boycott, divestment and sanction campaigns and to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

There were repeated condemnations of Israel for promoting racism and practicing apartheid. This, despite the fact that 20% of Israel’s population is comprised of Arabs who are granted the same constitutional rights and privileges as Jewish Israelis.

One need only visit a Jerusalem hospital or shopping mall to appreciate how absurd it is to accuse Israel of apartheid. In contrast, Abbas has made it clear that a Palestinian state would be Judenrein and that he would not tolerate “the presence of a single Israeli – civilian or soldier – on our lands.” What is that if not ethnic cleansing? ....

Demonization of Israel concentrated on settlement policies, described in the debate as “the colonization of another country.”....

The facts are that the settlements comprise a mere 3% of the territories previously occupied by Jordan; there have been no new settlements created over the past decade; prime minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew from all settlements in the Gaza Strip – an area that was subsequently transformed into a launching pad for rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.

The only “settlement construction” has essentially related to natural growth in east Jerusalem and the existing blocs, which will undisputedly always remain part of Israel. The growth has been to cater for population expansion and no Palestinians were displaced because of the construction....'

Needless to say, among those pushing for, and obviously triumphally welcoming, parliamentary recognition of a Palestinian State, apart from the rabid Israel-haters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and similar secular groups, were such naive if well-meaning types as the [Anglican] Bishop of Coventry, Christopher Cocksworth, and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Clifton, Declan Lang, while Jeremy Moodey, who heads the Christian NGO Embrace the Middle East, declared that

'the Government should not ignore the result of the vote: "Britain has done much to contribute to the current mess . . . [including] this current Government's near unqualified support for Israel. Some 64 years after we recognised Israel, the British Parliament has now finally acknowledged that Palestinians are entitled to their own state."'

Isi Leibler, towards the end of the above-mentioned article, observed:

"There is some light at the end of the tunnel.

The barbaric behavior of Islamic fundamentalists is beginning to penetrate the consciousness of the Western world, which will hopefully ultimately recognize that Hamas is indeed a component of the global Islamic fundamentalist threat."

But as he also observed, the Commons' vote  

'"reflects the electoral influence of Muslim migrants and confirms that anti-Israelism is now embedded in the DNA of the Left. But above all, it reveals the reality that anti-Semitism has remained an integral component of British and European society, which is now expressed as hatred of the Jewish state."

Below is Melanie Phillips telling it like it is to Ezra Levant in Canada.

She talks of "this terrible nexus of non-Islamic liberals" supporting Islamic Israel-hatred.  "In the West we have become paralysed ... by ... multicultural political correctness .... Israel has become a pariah state ... Israel ...  which is obsessed by human rights .... Antisemitism is at the root of this [Islamic hatred and rejection of Israel] .... It's about Jews ... Antisemitism is the signature marker of a derangement" ... but owing to extreme political correctness  (which has invented "Islamophobia" along with the insistence that Muslims are  "victims") necessary free speech regarding Islam is muzzled and Western liberals fail to deplore in Islamism what Western liberals would deplore in Nazism.

As Ms Phillips observes, Muslims enjoy freedom of worship in Israel, yet the only country in the region guaranteeing rights of religious minorities is demonised by Western liberals despite that.

In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Rabbi Yehuda Glick, Mark Regev talks to a strident BBC interviewer regarding religious freedom in Jerusalem.

 And here's footage of Rabbi Glick and Jews and Arabs praying side by side at the Temple Mount (details here).

 Courtesy of StandWithUs:

Re BDS:
Terrific speech by Aussie Senator Glenn Sterle
Excellent article by Melanie Phillips

Isi Leibler's Insights Into European Antisemitism, Jewish Leadership Reactions, & Other Critical Current Issues (video)

Here's the highly articulate and characteristically forthright veteran international Jewish leader and Jerusalem Post columnist Isi Leibler in conversation with Rabbi Mark Golub on Shalom TV.  The topics range from the kidnapping of the three teenage Israelis in the West Bank, to the New York Metropolitan Opera's planned restaging of the despicable opera "The Death of Klinghoffer", to the crisis of European antisemitism (on which Leibler wrote so perceptively recently here) and the head-in-the-sand attitude of what passes for the Anglo-Jewish leadership.

As Golub remarks, "Isi ... nobody says it like you do".

 And talking of European antisemitism, there is a disturbing report here

"Israel ... Will Not Allow Itself To Be Sacrificed ... To Placate The Successors of Nazism"

Internationally renowned Jewish leader Isi Leibler's latest column in the Jerusalem Post examines the Israel-US relationship in the light of Obama's recent appeasement of Iran, and discusses the consequences of the Obama administration's expectation that the response of American Jewish organisations should be muted.  It's a long, must-read article, but its tone is not completely pessimistic:

'....It is sobering to realize that despite the fact that American public support for Israel is at an all-time high, the Obama administration was deceitful, lied, and effectively betrayed Israel. It behaved likewise to its long-standing Arab allies and dashed the aspirations of those Iranians seeking release from the brutal dictatorship of the fanatical Ayatollah regime. Unless Ayatollah Khamenei miraculously reverses his relentless xenophobia, Obama’s legacy will be that of an American president who appeased the most barbaric Islamic fundamentalist regime in the world.

Make no mistake. The genocidal Islamic fundamentalists ruling Iran are contemporary Nazis reinforced with messianic beliefs. Like the Nazis, they aim to impose their demonic ideology on the entire world and proudly proclaim their goal to defeat the “Great Satan” (America) and wipe the “rabid dog of the region” (Israel), off the map....

 Israel is now being accused of warmongering despite the fact that it has the most to lose in a conflict and had hoped that the Iranians could be pressured by sanctions to back down without resort to military action. The reality is that Obama’s appeasement of this draconian regime will only embolden the radical fanatics one of whose stated objectives is to impose global sharia law, almost guaranteeing a future war.

.... The overview of recent events should nevertheless be viewed in perspective. While it is reasonable to suggest that the US and its allies are repeating the scenario of appeasement policies undertaken by Chamberlain, Israel today is not Czechoslovakia of 1938. It is not a vassal state and will not allow itself to be sacrificed in order to placate the successors of Nazism.

The IDF today is the most powerful military force in the region, capable of deterring an onslaught by all its adversaries combined. Its neighbors Egypt and Syria are beset by internal problems and the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations are mired in their own crises. In relation to Iran, Saudi Arabia and Gulf states will quietly be supportive of Israel.

Besides, America is one of the few countries whose people expect its leaders to be guided by moral values rather than realpolitik. The remarks by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry at the Saban Conference effusively praising Israel and reiterating the US commitment to stand by us, reflects the shared values and support which Israel enjoys amongst the American public.

Despite the current tensions, continued delicate but determined diplomacy and our common interest in resisting Islamic fundamentalism will sustain the relationship with the US. Hopefully, a more friendly future administration will also restore the trust between both countries.

But today, as in the past, we must never subordinate our security to third parties and recognize that in the last resort, we can only rely on our strength and ability to defend ourselves.'

Read the entire article here

"The Enemy Within": J Street Summed Up By The Great I. J.

Mention  "I.J." in Australian Jewish communal circles and most people above a certain age will know exactly to whom you're referring: Isi Joseph Leibler, the clever and charismatic individual who, Colossus-like, led the community for a quarter of a century and who, by virtue originally of his groundbreaking and sustained efforts on behalf of trapped Soviet Jewry beginning in the 1960s rose to prominence (and stayed there) on the world Jewish stage.  (I've written more fully about him here.)

Admired and respected rather than universally loved (he suffers neither fools nor "trembling Israelites" gladly), he left a vacuum in the Australian Jewish leadership that has never been adequately filled when he departed for Israel in 1999.  Well-known to a wide readership as a Jerusalem Post columnist, I.J. (or "The Great Man," to give him his other epithet) masterfully sums up in his latest column all that is wrong with J Street:

".... J Street’s leadership ... manipulates history and reality with dangerous rhetoric. Founder and President, Jeremy Ben Ami, refuses to recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” referring to it as a “Jewish democratic home, in the state of Israel”. Co-founder Daniel Levy has described Israel’s creation as “an act that went wrong”. It is noteworthy in this respect that Ben Ami was also proven to be a serial liar when despite his repeated denials to the contrary, the anti-Israeli George Soros was exposed as one of his major contributors

 In contrast to AIPAC whose charter explicitly states that it supports the policies of the Israeli government holding office, J Street actively lobbies the US government to undermine policies that are enacted by Israel’s democratically elected government. It continuously fiercely disparages AIPAC and has gone to the extent of fanning anti-Semitism by warning that AIPAC’s “blind support” for Israel will give rise to hostile feelings that American Jews harbor dual national loyalties ....

 In the past, Labor leaders, including Yitzhak Rabin, considered it unconscionable for Jews living outside Israel to publicly engage in issues impacting on Israeli security from which neither they nor their children would reap the life or death consequences....

With the current unprecedented global escalation of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism, we must divorce ourselves from the enemy within. There is plenty of room in the Jewish tent for legitimate dissent and freedom of expression. But “pro-Israel” Diaspora Jews, are morally barred from intruding and in particular from lobbying governments to pressure Israel to take actions which impinge on its national security.'

The entire article must be read, to appreciate what sparked it, and his further strictures thereon: see it here

"How Will I Explain This On The Steps Of The Mosque At Lakemba?": Australian Foreign Minister Carr's Stance On Israel Condemned

Today's Sydney Daily Telegraph (12 December, Aussie time) carries an exclusive column by the prominent Labor federal politician Michael Danby, chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence.

Danby, at one stage of his career the only Jew in federal Parliament, is (like Foreign Minister Bob Carr, once considered friendly towards Israel) a leading figure on the Right of his party (the ALP), and has been a pro-Israel advocate since his student days.

In his column he condemns what he sees as Carr's manipulative betrayal of Israel, which, he claims involved Carr ringing around keyparty  figures to ensure that pro-Israel Prime Minister Julia Gillard (pictured, with Bibi Netanyahu) was undermined.

Writes Danby, inter alia:

"As NSW premier he [Carr, in 2003] awarded the Sydney Peace Prize to Palestinian ideologue Hanan Ashrawi. As the only major figure in the Australian Jewish community to defend his actions, I used the Voltaire argument, namely his right to say things with which others disagreed.... 

Parliament last month saw a switch in Australia's stance at the UN creation of a Palestinian state after Julia Gillard's pro-Israel position was challenged and then overturned by Carr and others....

Some caucus members worry about every Palestinian - who is, by aid dollars per capita, the most highly subsidised minority in the world, including $350 million of Australian taxpayer funds.

By contrast, poor gentle Tibet gets little sympathy. More than 80 Tibetans have burned themselves to death in the past 18 months as a result of Chinese oppression.

Tibetans launch terrorist attacks on no one. They acquire no Iranian missiles to attack Chinese cities; they strap on no suicide vests to blow up no children on school buses.

Yet the Tibetans can't get a meeting with our Foreign Minister and they don't get a dollar from the UN.

We avert our eyes when a real power like China crushes under its boot an ancient people like the Tibetans. Yet our Foreign Minister asks of the Palestinian vote at the UN: "How will I explain this on the steps of the mosque at Lakemba?"

Nor are there any caucus resolutions over the 200,000 in the living death of North Korean concentration camps or the 300,000 African Muslims of Darfur butchered by their Islamist government in Sudan.

But the ostensible, domestic motivations for our changed vote are the most troubling aspect of the debate inside the Labor Party during the final week of parliament. It is self-defeating to suggest, as was widely claimed, that voters in western Sydney (who swung against the NSW Labor Party by 30-40 per cent at the last state election) will be influenced by votes at the UN.

Corruption at the heart of both the Left and Right of NSW Labor and the clear lack of infrastructure, particularly in western Sydney, are the real turn-off in Sydney seats. Phoning around, then speaking on the matter and ultimately threatening to speak against the Prime Minister is unforgivable behaviour for any minister in any cabinet government...."

Read the entire article here (hat tip: reader Shirlee)

In a recent column in the Jerusalem Post, the internationally-known and widely respected Jewish leader Isi Leibler, for a quarter of a century the dominant figure in the Australian Jewish community until he made aliya over a dozen years ago, also condemns Bob Carr's position, contrasting it with the demonstrated pro-Israel stance of almost all Australian federal administrations (regardless of party) down the years.

Explains Leibler, with justification:

"Much of this historical bipartisanship can be attributed to a vigorous Jewish community, renowned as being one of the most vibrant Zionist communities in the Diaspora. Its leadership has never failed, to speak upand take a principled stand on behalf of Israel when appropriate."

Of Carr, he writes in part:

"On a few recent occasions, votes by Australia at the UN appeared to deviate from the norm, but this was rationalized as temporary pandering to the Arabs to solicit votes for elections to the Security Council.

The dramatic tilt against Israel was spearheaded by Foreign Minister Bob Carr who exerted enormous pressure on the Labor caucus and compelled Prime Minister Gillard to backtrack from her decision to oppose the Palestinian initiative. Had she not complied, she would have been humiliatingly defeated and possibly toppled as Prime Minister. 

Carr was vigorously supported by former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, at one time one of Israel’s greatest supporters, notorious (whilst inebriated) for having called on Israel to “nuke” the Palestinians if they failed to halt the terror. Hawke was intimately connected to Israel’s Labor leaders but after Menahem Begin was elected Prime Minister in 1977, he changed his views and today regards Israel as “intransigent”. He was supported by another veteran Labor politician, former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, who since retiring from government has been consistently canvassing the Arab cause. Both fervently lobbied Labor ministers to repudiate Gillard’s policy....

Carr visited Israel in August this year meeting Israeli and Palestinian leaders including Ashrawi.

 On his return to Australia, he raised eyebrows when he dispatched a delegation to Iran to solicit votes for Australia’s UN Security Council candidature. There were also unconfirmed rumors circulating that undertakings were made to the Arabs in return for their support.

His backing of Israel during the Gaza campaign was lukewarm. In the Senate, he made the astonishing statement:  “Any response by Israel needs to be proportionate and not lead to civilian casualties. We have on more than a dozen occasions called on both sides to exercise restraint”.

Setting aside the moral equivalence inherent in this remark, he was effectively demanding that Israel – which more than any army in history goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties – take no action to defend its citizens from missile attacks.

He was even more forthcoming after the UN vote when he proclaimed “I don’t apologize for the fact that Australia has interests in the Arab world. If we had voted no, that would have been a body blow to our interests in over 20 countries. The truth is they all see this as a bedrock issue.” He also dismissed suggestions that the Palestinians intended to exploit their new observer status to initiate charges of war crimes against Israel at the International Criminal Court.

Carr’s change of policy was confirmed when he joined the European bandwagon and hauled Israel’s Ambassador to Australia, Yuval Rotem over the coals following Israel’s decision to build homes in the Jerusalem suburbs and adjacent areas – which the Bush Administration had agreed should remain within Israel....

 [U]nless Gillard succeeds in persuading the Labor Party caucus to change its approach, in the short term Israel should not expect support from Australia under Foreign Minister Carr. Like many of our European “friends”, Carr may continue insisting that his motivations are based upon having the Jewish state’s security at heart and trying to save Israel from itself. But when the chips are down, he will abandon us as he did at the UN General Assembly.""

A recent scene in Sydney

Leibler also notes a salient demographic factor:

"With close to 500,000 Moslems now living in Australia, many concentrated in key Labor Party electorates, their influence has impacted on a number of Labor Ministers. Combined with the vehement anti-Israeli orientation of the far left Labor factions, this enabled Carr to persuade the Cabinet to tilt its policy against Israel."

(The number of Jews in Australia is around 100,000.)

Incidentally, the results of Britain's 2011 Census were announced today.

Of potential relevance to the way politicians react to issues affecting Israel, that Census shows that there are 263,000 declared Jews – and 2.7 million Muslims.