I’m currently in Melbourne for the writer’s festival. I’m speaking on a variety of subjects, including terrorism and the Middle East. Yesterday’s forum, Australia’s Israel Question, drew over 500 people into one of the largest venues of the festival. The sold-out event heard from Federal Court Judge Alan Goldberg, former Australian ambassador to Israel and author Peter Rodgers, human rights lawyer Julian Burnside and leading criminal lawyer Robert Richter. The Melbourne Age reports:
Prominent Melbourne barrister Robert Richter, QC, has called on the Jewish community to speak out when Israeli Government policies adversely affect the Jewish diaspora.
Mr Richter, speaking at a session of the Age Melbourne Writers’ Festival yesterday, said author and commentator Antony Loewenstein, whose controversial book My Israel Question was the subject of the forum, had been, in a sense, a “truer and closer friend” to Israel than those who believed they “had the ear” of Israel’s Government.
“Diaspora Jews need to take a stand,” he said. “It’s not good enough that they have a private audience with the Israeli leader. They ought to be saying some pretty loud things and not just murmuring approval.”
In his book, Loewenstein canvasses an assertion that there is an unspoken understanding in the Jewish diaspora to avoid criticism of Israel and its policies.
Mr Richter, who lived in Israel until he was 13, said there was no longer a question of whether Israel had a right to exist. But when some of the country’s actions meant anti-Semitic sentiment was directed towards those living outside the Jewish state, the diaspora community had the right to criticise, he said.
Loewenstein also writes that the Jewish lobby in Australia works to stifle debate around Israel and particularly its actions in the occupied territories.
To this, barrister and human rights activist Julian Burnside, QC, said: “One of the most important elements in any community . . . is the genuine possibility of freedom of thought and freedom of speech. There are no ideas that are off limits and no questions that are illegal.”
There is clearly a groundswell of interest in debating this subject. The Zionist lobby and its supporters rightly fear an examination of their tactics and motives and prefer to simply smear any opponents. Luckily, this tactic is failing miserably. My Israel Question is now a best-seller and causing Jews and non-Jews alike to discuss the role of Israel in the Middle East and the West’s relationship with the Jewish state.
The conversation has begun.
(My speech during yesterday’s event is here: Melbourne Writer’s Festival discussion paper)
The Melbourne Writer’s Festival lnik is dead.
The link is also dead.
Great stuff Antony,
You’re doing an amazing job. Thank god there is finally an open discussion about these issues.
The link might well be a Safari/Mac issue: it works fine using Firefox.
Congrats Antony. Takes a good deal to do what you have done.
Hey I just listened to Procul Harum over at Crooks and Liars while reading this blog entry -magic.
Procul Harum……you mean Whiter Shade of Pale Procol Harum?
My God, I think I have that.
Is there any other. Film clip is great though. Maybe Irag-Iran is the Vietnam of this generation. Just a thought, but it might not be only muslim youth who will be radicalized in the near future. I think as a society we have overslept and my generation- the x-ers are most to blame.
Don’t blame the x-ers, they were the product of the baby boomers who rebelled against their parents who grew up during the Great Depression and WWII - now they were REALLY fucked up.
I object to the use of the term ‘diaspora’ to refer to certain Jews. It is a term that has been seconded to the Zionist cause. By definition, it means “any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands; being dispersed throughout other parts of the world, and the ensuing developments in their dispersal and culture”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora
Israel is not the traditional ethnic homeland of the Jews. That is the Zionist myth.
Antony, stop supporting Zionism!
Even though their history claims they came to Canaan from elsewhere, it s probable that the ancestral Jews were in fact locals differing only in the religion they adopted around 700-800 BCE.
Not that this, IMO, entitles their decendants to Palestinian land they didn’t legitimitely buy and it certainly doesn’t entitle them to rule over the real owners. The idea that a people retain land rights even after 2000 years is untenable. The Romans occupied England for longer than the Kingdom of Israel existed and left at about the same time as the last Jews were driven out of Judah, so do Italians have the right to resettle Britain and boot out the current inhabitants? What about the Moors and Spain, or the Vandal decendants in North Africa to Germany and parts of Scandinavia?
And then there are the Australian Aboriginals and Native Americans. Their association with their land is much more enduring than the claims of the Israelites. At least 48,000 years and 12-15,000 years respectively. Plus their “diasporas” were much more recent, in some cases within the last decade, making their land claims many times stronger. Hands up all those who are giving their land back to the local Aboriginal/Native American group, without compensation, to live in an Indonesian or Cuban refugee camp!
as an “oldie”, I can only admire the stand you have taken Antony. I’ve had to contend with our Jewish “Lobby” for 40 years & they seem to get more paranoic with each year that passes. But our voices need to be heard to prevent democratic debate being stifled. I remember telling fellow Jews after the Yom Kipur War of 1973, that then was the time to give up the settlement policies and recognise the Palestinian rights to a homeland.The abuse was intimidating and otherwise progressive Jews became blind,deaf & dumb when it came to commenting on Israeli policies. I argued then that by maintaining its expansionist policies the only future for Israel would be annhialation and threatening all of us with a world war. I was told I was mad and a Jewish anti-semite (oxymoron?)& was even threatened physically by one rabid Zionist. (Plus ca change!)
Keep up the good work