High-profile members of Australia’s Jewish community condemn the violence in Gaza strip

5 Responses to “High-profile members of Australia’s Jewish community condemn the violence in Gaza strip”

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• Sarah Haynes

  6 January 2009 at 1:42 pm

  Dear members of the Jewish community,

  Thank you for adding your voices to the debate. Meanwhile our politicians are too busy kowtowing to America to even bother assessing the seige on Gaza, simply trotting out the worn slogan “Israel has a right to defend itself”.

  You are brave and inspirational.

  Best regards,

  Sarah
• Brian Haill

  6 January 2009 at 4:58 pm

  I echo and support Sarah’s remarks.

  Even in the fiercest heat, a gentle little breeze offers a great relief. It could grow to become a gale!

  The website of the Israeli website in Canberra reports on the appointment speech of the Israeli ambassador in August last year. It’s striking in that he refers to the fact that Israel has been deserted by many of its own, but that Australia had been ‘different’ in that it had continued its support.

  The Israeli government would be quite wrong if it counts on Australia remaining ‘different’ if its interpretation means that they have an open Australian cheque to do whatever they want in the Palestinian lands. Australia’s support is neither up for sale not may it be bought.

  Clearly, the outgoing US President has donated the final days of his office to letting the Israeli government…and its central contenders for the Prime Ministership in the upcoming Israeli election…to do whatever they want in Gaza.

  Perhaps, one day, the United States might catch up with the rest of the world and dump its leadership just as soon as it loses an election….rather than crippling the incoming administration as George Bush is presently doing with Barack Obama.

  There’s still time for the American people to leave their shoes at the gates of the White House and for others to do the same with both US and Israeli embassaies abroad…yes, even in Canberra.

  Now that the Chinese leadership has also repudiated the denial by the Israel Foreign Minister that there’s a humanm catastrope in Gaza,we may see words give way to actions…..What the Chinese say is given respect in Canberra.
• Thomas

  6 January 2009 at 11:26 pm

  As someone who has respected and admired Judaism for its contribution to civilisation in general and to my society in particular, I am a complete loss to reconcile the Judaism I have encountered in the decent Jews I know with the barbarism I see played out in the Middle East. Jews are able to live in peace and prosperity in Australia and around the world (including in many Islamic countries), yet in the actions of the State of Israel towards others in its midst I see abuse of power at the grossest level. The only way I can rationalise this disparity is by positing the existence of two Judaisms – a true one which is the rootstock for both Christianity and Islam – and a vile distortion, namely Zionism. I cannot believe that the real God of Israel is the one invoked by Zionism. The latter can only be the insane projection of savage and criminal minds who require divine blessing for oppression, murder and the wholesale robbery and destruction of other people’s property. Shimon Peres claims that Israel has justice on its side, but the carnage in Gaza and previous atrocities in Lebanon, not to mention the historic and ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people and imprisonment of their democratically elected representatives, suggest that he and other Israeli leaders have fallen victim to their own propaganda. Their inability to distinguish reality from fiction, truth from falsehood and right from wrong presages the end of the Zionist project. Thanks Anthony Loewenstein and Independent Australian Jewish Voices for having the courage to speak out against the insanity and propaganda.
• Madhu

  7 January 2009 at 3:52 am

  I am neither a australian, nor Israeli, nor palestinian – but someone who was in west bank the day Israel bombed Gaza. Having arrived in east Jerusalem two days earlier, I was still coming to terms with not just the fact that Jerusalem was indeed a beautiful city – assimilating various cultures and religions with ease and grace, but that the patience expressed by Palestinians against odds was heroic. I am talking of that ordinary palestinian woman who sold the fresh spinach to me and kept up her encouraging smile while I struggled with the coins; and that graceful teenager who lived patiently among israeli settlers encroaching on her home with audacity and with a brazen attitude that they will be ‘protected’ however they behaved. I am talking of the day I tripped and fell in the old city and found atleast ten palestinians trying to help me up and search for my glasses in the darkness of the alleyways where shops remained closed due to the attack on gaza.

  I crossed the Israeli check point back and forth from Bethleham – acutely aware of the high cement wall being built between israeli and palestinian communities, which is forcing palestinians to cross the check points every day under intimidating circumstances even to carry out their daily lives and work and for many women to deliver their babies in ‘decent’ hospitals.

  In those moments I understood that peace will always elude these people – the more Israel dehumanises the issue by lumping all palestinians under the ‘terrorist hamas’ banner and in the process forgets that children are among those attacked and that there are mothers giving birth among all this death and destruction, the more will death and destruction unfold – If we all have to wage a war to find peace, why look for peace at all?

  I am glad and sad that my first visit to Jerusalem turned out this way – glad to have my eyes opened and sad to see how hard mankind strives to maintain the strife.
• Mohommed

  7 January 2009 at 12:35 pm

  I would like to say that I am grateful for this blog site and would like to thank the decent Jewish people who stand up for Humanity and who are expressing their dissident for the Israeli offensive strikes on Gaza.

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