"Shekel for the Good Goy": Anti-"Zionists" bare their antisemitic fangs

James Paterson, who's not yet 30, has been since last year a Liberal member of the Australian Senate, representing Victoria.   In his maiden speech he called on Australia to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

And in the latest issue of the Australian Jewish News Senator Paterson has a splendid article regarding the brouhaha over the casting of an Israeli actress in the movie Wonder Woman.

It's replicated on his web page.

'Superhero movies have become a staple of Hollywood, but few have garnered as much political attention as Wonder Woman. It’s the latest target of the ugly anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

The film has already been banned in Lebanon and Tunisia, pulled from the Nuits du Cinéma film festival in Algeria, and temporarily banned in Jordan.

This pointless boycott neatly highlights the deep undercurrent of anti-Semitism within the BDS campaign, despite the protests to the contrary by its advocates.

Wonder Woman is not a movie about Israel, or the Israel-Palestine conflict. It’s silent on Israel’s right to exist, and its right to defend itself. It takes no view on the validity of the claims of Palestinians.

The only crime Wonder Woman is alleged to have committed is to feature an Israeli woman as the lead actress. This fact alone has been sufficient to justify and excuse boycotts, bans, and over the top criticism.

Like other Israeli women, Gal Gadot served in the Israeli Defence Force. Like most people, Gadot has condemned Hamas for its terrorism.

Her views on the right of Israelis to live free from the threat of violence, and her support for the IDF’s securing of this right, are no different to the support that the vast majority of Australians give to our troops fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.

Gadot’s role in Wonder Woman has even been denounced in the pages of the Fairfax press, with columnist Ruby Hamad claiming it’s an example of the how Western feminism ignores the plight of Arab women.

Hamad claims that the praise the movie has received from her fellow feminists’, despite Gadot’s role, is “a frustrating reminder of what I call the Arab blindspot of Western feminism.”

She continues: “Hailing Wonder Woman as a hero for all women is an ironic assault given the huge gulf between the character’s anti-war idealism and the hawkish views of the actor who portrays her.”

Hamad is correct to call attention to the plight of Arab women. But it is wrong to blame this on Israel – the only country in the Middle East that provides women the same level of freedom and opportunity, regardless of their race or religion, that exists in the west.

According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report Israel is ranked as the 49th most gender-equal society in the world, slightly behind Australia at 46.

This is in stark contrast to the extensive legal and cultural oppression that exists throughout the rest of the middle east. After Israel, the next highest ranked country in the region is Qatar, at 119. And the majority of the middle east is even worse, filling 12 of the bottom 20 places.

This is because of systemic legal and cultural inequality, covering everything from laws enforcing strict Islamic dress codes, to woman’s testimony in court being worth half of that of a man’s – a policy that exists for at least some issues in 14 Middle Eastern countries. The horrific treatment of women under ISIS, with their widespread practice of capturing women to be kept as sex-slaves, is even worse.

There have recently been some small advances, with King Salman of Saudi Arabia issuing a decree that will allow women to study, work, and access government services without requiring permission from a male guardian. But these advances are long overdue, and sadly, few and far between.

Feminists who care about the plight of Arab women would do better to examine their own blindspots and focus on these real outrages, rather than a Hollywood movie with a Jewish actress'

On Facebook Senator Paterson doe not resile from proclaiming his staunch support for Israel:

Needless to say, the usual suspects are not happy:

And many, including thee two

 

and the sample below, have revealed the grubby antisemitism that motivates their hatred of Israel:

Bringing BDS To Book

From left: Danby, Dyrenfurth, Mendes, Feeney

It's a pleasure to be able to report a just-published book by two left-leaning pro-Israel Aussie academics that, as a counter to the poison spewed by so many leftwingers these days, powerfully presents the case against BDS.

Written by Philip Mendes and Nick Dyrenfurth, Boycotting Israel is Wrong was launched to much acclaim from moderate  voices on the political left in Australia.

The photograph shows its authors at Thursday's launch in Melbourne, flanked by two federal MPs from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) benches in Canberra: Michael Danby (who's Jewish, and has been a pro-Israel stalwart throughout his career) and David Feeney, an influential figure in certain Labor circles who's at present Shadow Justice Minister.

A typical reaction from the Israel-hating  Green-Left, in this case Melbourne socialist councillor Sue Bolton.

Her post refers to the  Melbourne launch.  (There was also a successful Sydney launch the previous day.)

I won't say more about the book here because I've made it, its launch by David Feeney, and its thrust (it includes a "progressive"prescription for peace that won't please every supporter of Israel) the focus of my column this week on the Elder of Ziyon site

Already, the book has caused much gnashing of teeth from left-wing Israel-demonising  pro-BDS elements in Australia, as I indicate in that column.  Please have a look at my column.

Exactly.  This point was made at the launch.

A South African Christian Journalist Talks Up Israel Down Under

As I mentioned in my previous blog, a number of anti-Israel demonstrations took place in Britain

over the weekend.  In Australia, too, the Israel-haters have been out in force, marking especially 29 November, designated as the "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People".

29 November was the date in 1947 when the United Nations voted to accept the Palestine Partition Plan by which there would be two states created between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean, one Jewish and the other Arab.  The Jews, of course, accepted the plan, and thereafter achieved their state, but the Arabs rejected it, dooming the people nowadays rebranded "Palestinians" to a pawn-like status that serves the ends of Israel's recalcitrant Arab enemies.

Here are scenes of a demo  in Sydney this 29 November: all representative anti-Israel human life appears to be there:

Meanwhile, on the Facebook page of a ratbag leftist group advertising a talk by an Irish agitator to be held in Melbourne next year, proof of a Far Left "package deal" at work:

Just as, in 1947, Australia's "Doc Evatt" played a seminal role in the UN's vote in favour of a Partition (see my post here) so, in 1917, Australian troops (the 10th Light Horse Regiment) played a prominent part in General Allenby's liberation of Jerusalem from the rule of the Ottoman Turks  (see my post here).

With that Anzac contribution in mind, South African journalist Stan Goodenough, a committed Christian Zionist who tweets here, told a congregation at Queensland's Sunshine Coast yesterday that

'....Christians should be writing to Mr Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to applaud their pro-Israeli stance....

Mr Goodenough said Australia was right in arguing that Jewish settlements were not illegal under international law and that it should not formally recognise Palestine.

He was speaking on the Sunshine Coast as part of a tour of Australian churches where he is rallying support for Australian not to fold to international pressure. He has also spoken at Toowoomba.

History had shown those countries who has supported Israel had prospered while those who opposed it had been cursed, he said.

Mr Goodenough said the US' recent decline was evidence of the fact that it had waned in its support of the Jewish people, especially under President Barack Obama.

The long-time journalist in Israel said giving land to Palestine was akin to 'giving Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler'.

"You are giving land to people who are determined to continue to wage war by their own mouth.

"I heard Yasser Arafat, after he signed Oslo, in a mosque in Johannesburg, I have the recording, in which he said the peace process is a deception, we will use it until we are strong enough, and then we will throw it in the trash can.''

"It sounds nice to say all Palestinian Arabs want to live in peace,'' he said.

But he said history and their own statements made a lie of that.

"They don't want to live in peace. They want Israel to be removed.''

Mr Goodenough said the two-state 'solution' would give mountain territory overlooking the Israeli land to Palestine.

Some 80% of the population of Israel lived in strip of land, just 13 kilometres wide at its narrowest point.

"They would all be under the rocket fire.''

"We are now talking about multiplying the (current) threat (in Gaza) 1000 times plus - right over our cities, right over our international airport, everything is in range.''

Mr Goodenough said history had shown that each time Israel gave up land, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) had used it to launch further attacks.

"You want to reward them for their terrorism by giving them land that never belonged to them and they will use that to continue their violence. How dare you.''

"We need to talk to our leaders with anger.  What they are doing is immoral and very, very dangerous for Israel and also for your country."'

Read the entire report here

Meanwhile, talking of South Africa the leaders of two Jewish organisations who met with Mahmoud Abbas and came away "much assured" by what he told them are being considered by many on social media to be too trusting and naive.