"A Failed Movement Of Radical Activists": Israel's Man In Oz Slams Australia's BDSers

At the relaunch in New South Wales of Parliamentary Friends of Israel last evening, Israel's ambassador to Australia, Yuval Rotem, slammed the local BDS movement as represented by such Greens as Fiona Byrne and Senator Lee Rhiannon.

"It has been close to a year since the last State election since Marrickville and the BDS issue found a national stage. It was one of  the achievements of not just the Australian Jewish community but the Coalition and the Labor Party that  BDS faced an abrupt rejection on that stage.

The concern throughout NSW was that the row during the BDS  debates was expected. Commonsense does not comply  with a local council self-imposing economic sanctions on one nation which is locked in a struggle for peace. [My emphasis]

Senator Lee Rhiannon’s Greens  looked likely to pick up a cluster of seats”in the NSW State election but were left demoralised finishing behind Labor on primary votes in the only seat they ended up winning.

The candidate for Marrickville, Fiona Byrne, tripped over herself in many public statements…confused that her Utopian vision of a world with a weakened Israel was poorly received outside the confines of her urban hamlet.

BDS in Australia has since then become  another a failed movement of radical activists which shamefully attached itself to a municipal council for a few months.

This humiliating public defeat of the BDS was an achievement of the people in this room. The politicians,  Liberal, National, Labor and some Greens. When we hear about BDS now, it’s not coming from the mouths of prominent politicians or mayors or respected journals. It’s been shouted from poorly-attended protests or the back of police cars or from Communists who stayed with Stalin.

One year on and the movement in New South Wales to undermine the economy in the Middle East’s only democracy is as dead as Fiona Byrne’s brief career in international diplomacy."

 The ambassador continued:

 "I thank the people in this room on behalf of the State of Israel for their courage during that time. I thank Premier Barry O’Farrell and his colleagues for their uncompromising stand for the future of that Council. I thank the Leader of the Opposition John Robertson and his colleagues for mounting the progressive case for the future of Israel… and especially I want thank those Greens MPs and candidates who stood tall and opposed BDS citing their own values of principal and justice for which some of their colleagues have no tolerance. I thank all involved who have helped see off this anti-Jewish  and anti-Israel sentiment in our community. ..in our newspapers on our streets we must also thank the voters of New South Wales.”

Of Marrickviile Council, which overturned its espousal of BDS and has a new mayor, he said:

“I encourage them to learn more about my tiny, tiny miraculous country in the Middle East, awash with the principals of democracy, values freedom and a culture not enjoyed by the autocratic and theocratic regimes that surround us.” [My emphasis]

For full report and photos see J-Wire

Labor state parliamentarian Walt Secord, a co-convenor of the event,  told The Australian newspaper that he wholeheartedly agreed with Mr Rotem regarding the Greens:

"Their tactics were schoolyard foreign affairs and almost borderline anti-Semitism."

Fiona Byrne reportedly has no comment: see more from that newspaper  here 

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)

"Spartans, Prepare for Glory!": A Memento of Marrickville (video)

Here's Father Dave, the Anglican Boycott Derangement Syndromer of Marrickville, throwing his hands around and using hyperbole to exhort the "militia" to battle on:

Turbulent priest though he evidently is, the good clergyman's attitude to the truly oppressive and cruel regimes of the Islamic world seems for some inexplicable reason to wallow in obscurity. 

Marrickville Council Meeting Rescinding BDS Resolution (videos)

Mayor Fiona Byrne in chair.

More details in my previous post.

As for Byrne, the unrepentent Green said:

 "We have created a little egg which is support for the plight of the Palestinian people and a sledgehammer is being used to break that.

Certainly we have put BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) on the national agenda, whatever that means."

I sniff the whiff of antisemitism.

And here's that woman with the shoe again:

Marrickville Council Calls on Israel to "End the Occupation of All Arab Lands" but Backs Down over Boycott

Faced with the sack by New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell, Sydney's Marrickville Council has backed down on its ludicrous and outrageous Greens-led BDS venture, but certain councillors still fail to realise that they are in the "roads, rates and rubbish" tier of public life and that their business is emphatically not Australian foreign policy.

You see, despite voting on Tuesday 8:4 in favour of this motion:

“Cancel resolve not to pursue the GBDS against Israel in any shape or form, as called for in the Dec 14 resolution”

the Council  passed this, introduced by Councillor Dimitrios Thanos, one of the four recalcitrant Greens, who included Marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne:

“The Council remain concerned about Palestinian human rights and calls on Israel to end the occupation of all Arab lands; dismantle the wall, and to ensure the fundamental rights of Palestinians to full equality”

The three-hour meeting was raucous, with eruptions from the public gallery that entailed swearing in Arabic; a few pro-Palestinians were asked to leave, three were ejected, and outside on the stairs there were altercations that were broken up by police.  All 12 councillors spoke, as did no less than 17 members of the public.

According to The Australian, Councillor Cathy Peters, who intoduced the original motion that committed the Council to the BDS Movement, was the most passionate speaker in favour of retaining BDS.  She, it seems, is Jewish, to boot; her grandparents reportedly were incarcerated in Terezin.

As a taste here's local Anglican cleric  and anti-Israel agitator Father David Smith (aka "Father Dave"), talking emotively about the "forces of darkness" (the voice calling for order is Fiona Byrne's):

For more see: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/councillors-withdraw-support-for-boycott/story-e6frf7jx-1226041833870 and http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/marrickville-council-drops-israel-boycott/story-fn59niix-1226041840517
(Hat tip: reader Shirlee)

On hand to boost the Boycott Derangement Syndromers' cause was that nice Jewish boy Antony Loewenstein, whose strange hatred for the Jewish State has lent aid and comfort to anti-"Zionists" galore.

He's the subject of this early post of mine: http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2010/07/dirty-doings-down-under.html

Here, he posts John Pilger's missive to the meeting: http://antonyloewenstein.com/2011/04/18/john-pilger-to-sydneys-marrickville-council-stand-up-for-palestine/

And there have been, evidently, more dirty doings Down Under, since an Australian citizen of Saudi birth has been arrested in Israel as a spy for Hamas: http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=217190

The Marrickville Horror (videos)

Sydney's Marrickville Council to Vote on Whether to Rescind its anti-Israel Boycott

As a result of a motion introduced by Councillor Victor Macri (pictured), who has opposed a Boycott all along, the Boycott Derangement Syndromers of Marrickville in inner Sydney will vote this coming Tuesday on whether to continue in their loathsome folly or whether to return to their proper role of looking after Marrickville's roads, rates, and rubbish,

Councillor Macri's motion reads:

1. Marrickville Council immediately withdraw its support for the BDS Global Campaign and put out a press release stating this on the Council web site.

2. that Council remove the boycott of all goods in Israel and any sporting, academic, government or cultural exchanges.

3. Marrickville Council write to the local state and federal ministers (Carmel Tebbutt and Anthony Albanese) informing them of Council's position on this item.

4. that Council acknowledge that Australian Foreign Policy is the responsibility of the Commonwealth Government and not Local Government.

5. that Marrickville Council write to Randwick Council informing them of Council’s decision.

6. Marrickville Council write a letter detailing the wishes of the people of Marrickville for a peaceful solution and an end to violence in the region to Israel and Palestine Governments. Officer’s Comments General Manager: As part of the resolution of the Council on the GBDS adopted on the 14th December 2010 staff were required to prepare a report on the implications of the GBDS should Council decide to actively pursue the boycott and divestment provisions inherent in the global BDS campaign. A report has been completed and has been included in the Business Paper for the Council meeting to be held on 19th April. This report includes commentary on the potential financial implications of the GBDS decision of the Council. I urge the Council to seek a workable and equitable solution to this issue as a matter of urgency as the GBDS issue and the speculation surrounding it has become a distraction for staff at a time when we are working through a considerable program of organisational change and strategic planning aimed at maintaining Marrickville Council as a vibrant, sustainable and responsive Council into the future.

Meanwhile, the Australian federal Senate has supported a motion by Senator Mitch Fifield (pictured).

Fifield's motion:

■Notes the boycott of Israel instigated by Marrickville Council – the Global Boycott Divestments and Sanctions (GBDS) – banning any links with Israeli organisations or organisations that support Israel and prohibiting any academic, government, sporting or cultural exchanges with Israel.

■Notes letters from Marrickville Council to Members of Parliament asking them to support the GBDS.

■Notes reports of the intention of the Greens Marrickville Mayor Ms Fiona Byrne to seek to extend the boycott of Israel to the entire state of NSW.

■Acknowledges that Israel is a legitimate and democratic state and a good friend of Australia.

■Denounces the Israel boycott by Marrickville Council and condemns any expansion of it

Said Fifield, a Liberal Senator from the State of Victoria:

"I’m pleased that the Senate has passed this very important motion.

We must send a message in the strongest possible terms to our friends in Israel that Marrickville Council’s extreme view is not supported by the majority of Australians.

It is important that Members of Parliament take a stand against this campaign to delegitimise Israel."

Source: J-Wire

Fiona Byrne lost her bid to represent Marrickville in the NSW legislature, by the way, but this is still worth a laugh:

Australia's BDS Council May Face Sack

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yep, Lee. Tell that to the marines.

"BDS is a Regressive Strategy": The Left's Mania for Boycotting Israel Slammed

Prompted by the BDS-mania of the Greens in New South Wales, the Sydney-based national newspaper The Australian carries a fine indictment of the BDS brigade.  Entitled "Israel Boycott Harms Arabs, Too," it's by three authors, including two well-known Australian academics; they deplore the path that the Left is taking against the only democracy in the Middle East.

Here's a taste:

'BDS is a regressive strategy that takes us back to the bad old days commencing well before the Israeli victory in the 1967 Six Day War when all Arabs and Palestinians boycotted Israel, and equally the days prior to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord when Israel refused to speak with the PLO as the leaders of the Palestinian people. It is a recipe not for peace and dialogue, but rather for demonisation and never-ending conflict. BDS advocates construct their case via a particularly narrow interpretation of the conflict's history whereby an Israeli Goliath oppresses a powerless Palestinian David. But this polemic dressed up as analysis ignores the fact that the Palestinians have always exercised agency.

They chose to violently oppose the 1947 UN resolution creating both Arab and Jewish states in Palestine, and badly lost the war that followed, resulting in what they call the "Nakbah" or Catastrophe. They also freely chose to launch the violent intifada in September 2000 thus destroying the US-led peace negotiations that would have probably resulted in an independent Palestinian State during 2001. This intifada has only lead to further tragedy for both peoples.

Perversely, BDS advocates suggest that the Palestinians should now be congratulated for abandoning the horrific suicide bombings and rocket attacks of the second intifada, instead adopting a non-violent strategy. But BDS initiated in this zero-sum context can only be seen as a war against Israel by other means.

It bears a message not of humanistic support for two states, but of a utopia where Israel unilaterally surrenders and concedes its national existence.

Likewise, BDS fails to engage with Israeli and diaspora opposition to the settlements, but seeks to impose a collective national guilt on all Israelis irrespective of their political views, social class or whether their background is Jewish, Arab or Druze.

Inevitably, the overwhelming majority of the six million Israeli Jews view BDS as motivated by the same prejudices that influenced Nazi anti-Semitism, and also the ethnic cleansing that drove out nearly a million Jews from the Arab world during the 1940s and 1950s. Their response is hardly likely to be dovish or conciliatory....

Many reasonable people who aren't ideological extremists are naively attracted to the BDS's emotive, humanitarian claims. We urge them to rethink their support. For instance, why would you boycott the only country in the Middle East where homosexuality is not a capital offence or even a crime? This is to say nothing of the illogicality of delegitimising a pluralist, parliamentary democracy which boasts an independent judiciary, free press and vigorous public debate.

Isn't that the sort of society which the recent uprisings across the Arab world are fighting for? Practically speaking, a successful BDS would either result in a Greater Israel with no Palestinian state, or a Greater Palestine based upon turning all Israeli Jews into refugees at best or genocide at worst.'

Read the entire article:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/israel-boycott-harms-arabs-too/story-e6frgd0x-1226035605319

A Boycotting Clergyman's Bunkum on Bethlehem

Father Dave is a Sydney Anglican clergyman who ardently supports the BDS movement.  Here, in  warmly congratulating Marrickville Council for boycotting Israel and in deploring the plight of "our suffering sisters and brothers in Bethlehem",  he in effect compares the situation of the Palestinian Arabs to the Holocaust and to that of blacks under South African Apartheid.

He appears to have overlooked the rather salient fact that the Christian population of Bethlehem has decreased markedly in recent decades - from 70 per cent under Israeli rule to 15 percent under that of the Palestinian Authority, largely as a result of Muslim persecution and intimidation.  Despite this, Israel is the target of his wrath.  He dismisses the "erroneous" and "insidious" charge of antisemitism made against the BDS movement ...

Father Dave expresses his "pride" in the Council's "wonderful motion" and favourably quotes Martin Luther King's dictum "injustice anywhere is a threat against justice everywhere".  Why, then, is he not calling on Marrickville Council to take a stand against injustice "everywhere"?

 

It's Grubby Beneath Some Green: A Sydney Boycott Derangement Syndromer and Jewish "Semitism"

Pip Hinman is a BDS activist in Sydney.  In the New South Wales state election she stood as a Socialist Alliance candidate for Marrickville (whose council recently voted to boycott Israeli products) and she writes regularly for Green Left Weekly.

In a blog concerned with "smears" directed at Marrickville  mayor Fiona Byrne (pictured on this defaced poster) Ms Hinman observes, in part:

'The attempt to slur those who criticise Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as fascists - or supporters of the Nazi’s attempts to wipe out the Jewish population in Eastern and Central Europe during the World War II - is a crude and desperate attempt to silence critics.

While some anti-BDS campaigners would disagree with this sort of slanderous tactic, they nevertheless equate criticism of Israel’s policies with a form of anti-Semitism.

Two weeks out from the election, a succession of editorials, comment pieces and articles asserted that Byrne (who is also the Mayor of Marrickville) was one or more of the following: deranged, an extremist, immature and, or, anti-Semitic.

The March 28 Sydney Morning Herald editorial said: “They [the Greens] may have paid a price for their Marrickville candidate’s indulgence in childish gesture politics as a local councillor. Fiona Byrne’s support for an absurd ban on firms with links to Israel from doing business with Marrickville Council only cast doubt on her and her party’s commonsense.”

An anti-BDS commentator to the online Green Left Weekly put it a little more crudely: “Singling out Israel [sic] [This sic is in the original, and it would be instructive to know why - Daphne] for boycotts and ignoring all the human rights violation in the Muslim world is anti Semitic, no matter if ur [sic] Jewish or not …” ....

The argument that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic is ridiculous but it is routinely used by supporters of Israel to try and silence its critics....

Antisemitisim - a hatred of people of Semitic “race”, which includes Palestinians and some Jews - is of course racist. Racism, in all its forms (including anti-Arab racism) should not be tolerated. [My emphasis]' (http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45868.html)

Methinks I glimpse that old Jews-are-Khazars trick again, which of course, in denying that most of World Jewry is of semitic origin and depicting Ashkenazim as Europeans entirely without roots in the Middle East is a major weapon in denying the Jews' claim to Eretz Israel and delegitimising the Jewish State.

In any case, when the German judeophobe Wilhelm Marr coined the term antisemitism around 1870 he used it, and intended it to be used, with specific application to hatred of Jews.

Ms Hinman would appear to have scored an own goal. 

And in doing so she has revealed the true grubby colour that all too often lies beneath Green.