Tag Archive for 'Australia'

What will it take for the love affair with Israel to cool?

Published on 20 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

With Israel under intense pressure to wind back its colonial project, the role of dissident Jews is vital, to make the wider community knows that we don’t support the actions of the Jewish state. Jews don’t speak with one voice.

It’s important, therefore, that the mainstream media is noticing. Take this piece in today’s Sydney Morning Herald by columnist Hamish McDonald:

The coolness didn’t last long. Along with standing firm on ”border security” and opposing higher taxes, our politicians find it hard to maintain any indignation, let alone anger or rage, against Israel.

This week the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, was buttering up Israel and its local lobbyists again, by staging a special press conference and media opportunity at Parliament House to ”receive” a written report and set of recommendations on boosting relations.

This was handed over by Albert Dadon, the new mover and shaker in Australia’s Jewish community, on behalf of the Australia Israel Leadership Forum, a second-track diplomacy venture started two years ago on the model of businessman Phil Scanlan’s longer-running Australia America Leadership Dialogue.

Kevin Rudd was a regular at Scanlan’s annual talkfest. Julia Gillard was a founder-member of Dadon’s one, joined by the opposition’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Julie Bishop, and various other political, academic, business and media figures.

The Israeli forum seems already to be well into the uncritical boosterism of which Scanlan’s group gets accused in some circles. It has chosen this time to suggest that along with more trade, agricultural and scientific exchanges and so on, Australia develops military-to-military ties with Israel.

Smith said he was ”very happy” to receive this report, which would get ‘’serious consideration” from the Prime Minister, adding: ”The friendship between Australia and Israel is longstanding and it is enduring, and that will continue. Despite recent events, which have been the cause of public commentary between Australia and Israel, that friendship will endure.”

The, ahem, recent events include the use of forged copies of Australian passports in the recent assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, and the ”insulting” (US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s word) action of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in announcing more Jewish housing in disputed East Jerusalem as the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, arrived in Israel and US-brokered ”proximity talks” between Israel and the Palestinians were about to start.

Australian Federal Police agents have been sent to Israel to inquire about the passports, and ASIO has been put on the case too. But no-one is expecting the AFP to find a link to Mossad, unless the Israeli intelligence agency has been very careless indeed.

Some longer coolness about East Jerusalem would have been in order. Netanyahu, who included a smarmy letter in Dadon’s report, has been trying to weasel his way out of the row with Washington by blaming the timing, but not the substance, on his interior minister and the Jerusalem mayor.

Australia’s rebuke was mildly worded. ”I share the view that this is a bad decision at the wrong time and it’s not a helpful contribution to the peace process,” Smith said, adding that Israel was undoing the ”very hard work” of the US and others to get the two sides working towards a ”two-state” solution.

But the two-state solution that seemed a real prospect at the high water of the Oslo peace process in the 1990s has come to look more and more like a mirage, as power slips away from moderates on both sides.

Netanyahu has backed away from the offer made by his predecessor Ehud Olmert in the dying days of his leadership, when he was a caretaker prime minister under a corruption cloud. His right-wing-religious government pays only lip-service to the two-state goal.

Many of the Palestinians, as the Israeli commentator Ehud Yaari notes in the current issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, are starting to think of separate statehood and sovereignty as a new form of imprisonment. Instead, they turn to continued struggle and faith that demographics will eventually yield dominance over the entire former Palestine Mandate. The rocket attacks out of Gaza have started again.

Israel meanwhile is steadily losing the sympathy that it once had as a beleaguered underdog threatened with extinction by hostile neighbours. Now it rains destruction with high-tech American weaponry at little risk to its own personnel (many of its 13 deaths in the Gaza operation were friendly-fire accidents; some 1300 Palestinians died). Its population, swollen by Russian immigrants accustomed to talk of Muslims as ”chyornaya zhopa” (black-arses) is now losing its old interest in the Arabs, with whom older Israelis grew up. They’re now away behind a high wall.

Meanwhile groups like Peace Now in Israel itself, J-Street in Washington, and individuals like Antony Loewenstein try to revive Jewish liberalism, to much vilification as ‘’self-hating Jews”. But even a hard realist like Yaari is worried about the trend: he suggests a short-circuit to endless haggling over the ”final status” agreement by recognition of a Palestinian state now, to take up negotiations, a suggestion that will shock some of the Jewish diaspora organisations that have brought him out on tour.

Behind its profession of undying support for Israel, the Rudd government has put a bit more detachment into our policy, ending our previous lining up with a bunch of tiny American client states in United Nations votes on the Middle East. In November 2008, it supported UN resolutions calling for a halt to settlements in the occupied territories and for adherence to the Geneva Convention in those areas. Last year it switched our vote from abstain to favour on the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. In February it went from oppose to abstain on a resolution calling for both Israel and the Palestinians to investigate possible war crimes in the Gaza conflict.

It doesn’t seem to be having any impact on Netanyahu and has opened Rudd to opposition sniping that he’s selling out Israel to win Arab votes for the UN Security Council seat. Both sides of our politics could do well to adopt the Rudd-Confucian doctrine of the ”zhengyou”, the ”true friend” (in Chinese) who can point out shortcomings.

Just how many weapons do we really need?

Published on 18 March 2010 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Waste, futile spending and over-blown excess is routine in the arms world (see this recent Sydney Morning Herald report that outlined the vast problems with the Australian Defence Department). And now this:

The United States scored last in a new study that examined how 33 major militaries spend funds on weapon systems – while potential U.S. rival Russia ranked third.

In a study due out March 15, consulting firm McKinsey & Co. examined how efficiently 33 nations that account for 90 percent of worldwide defense expenditures perform a range of functions. The study looked at how these militaries go about doing certain tasks in three key areas: personnel, maintenance and weapon buying.

“The United States and Australia are the lowest performing countries with regard to equipment output for every dollar spent,” McKinsey concludes.

I know it’s futile to say this, but couldn’t the obscene amounts of money spent on arms be better used on other important services?

Adhere to the rule of law, says Labor MP to Israel and her backers

Published on 18 March 2010 in Israel. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Senior Australian unionist Paul Howes wrote recently that Israel’s murder of a Hamas operative in Dubai was a wonderful thing to celebrate.

Retiring Labor MP Julia Irwin disagrees and said the following in Federal Parliament on 15 March:

Mrs IRWIN (Fowler) (9.18 pm)—I rise tonight to comment on an article in the Sunday Telegraph on 7 March
2010. The article, by the National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Mr Paul Howse, highlights three
things: (1) that Mr Howse is ignorant of the concept of justice; (2) that Mr Howse has little appreciation of the
values that Australians hold dear: and (3) that Mr Howse is completely ignorant of why unionists the world
over abhor extrajudicial killings. Mr Howse’s article celebrates the recent killing in Dubai of Mr Mahmoud al-
Mabhouh, a member of the Palestinian group Hamas, which Mr Howse described as ‘an ugly Islamo-fascist
terrorist organisation’. Paul Howse not only praises the extrajudicial killing of al-Mahbhouh, but happily declares his pride in Australia’s accidental involvement by virtue of the use of forged Australian passports to facilitate the travel of those involved in this murder.

While no-one is rushing to claim responsibility for the killing, there is ample anecdotal supposition that the
state of Israel may be responsible for this extrajudicial killing. Anecdotal evidence and supposition do not stand
up in a court of law. In the absence of a direct admission or direct evidence of the real identities of those involved there may be little that can be done, and that is very much the point. We will now never have the evidence against al-Mabhouh presented to a court. Its veracity will never be tested. There will be no due process. Al-Mabhouh will never face his accusers, and the families of his alleged victims will never have the opportunity to see him face public scrutiny for his alleged crimes, nor will they receive justice. These families will never have the opportunity to see the evidence and know for certain that al-Mabhouh was directly responsible for their tragedies.

In the case of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, he was captured, due process was observed, he was tried in a court of
law, evidence was presented, and he was convicted and sentenced. The families of Saddam Hussein’s victims
received justice. The old adage says: justice must not only be done; it must be seen to be done. Extrajudicial
killings fall far short of this standard and they have no place in a true democracy. Yet Paul Howse is happy for
our laws to be broken, for our sovereignty to be impinged upon and for the Australians whose identities were
stolen to be placed in precarious positions—Australians, I might add, who share Israeli citizenship, Australians
who now face the prospect of being detained whenever they travel because of Interpol alerts. They must now
prove their innocence but even then when they travel their doubts will remain, not to mention the other Israeli
dual nationals from various countries who have also had their identities stolen in the commission of this murder.

I am certain that these individuals would object to their identities being stolen for the commission of a crime.

The term extrajudicial killing is a polite way of referring to state sponsored murder, the execution of individuals
without judicial sanction and without due process. Of course the Dubai killing is not the first time extrajudicial
killings have been used as a tool to eliminate those deemed to be enemies of the state or simply undesirable. It has  long been a tool of totalitarian regimes and military dictatorships around the world. Regimes in Europe, Africa,  Asia, Latin and South America have all used this tool to eliminate opponents. In Latin and South America, for  example, those who were opposed to right-wing regimes or military dictatorships were simply eliminated by right-wing death squads. Many of these were unionists representing the working class and defending workers’  rights and many were identified as left-wingers or communists and deemed opponents of a regime. Thousands disappeared in an orgy of kidnapping, torture and murder. In south-western Sydney today the Latin and South  American communities tell of their stories. Many have told me personally of fleeing from their homelands in  order to escape the extrajudicial punishment and extrajudicial murders meted out at the hands of regime thugs,  often police, military or intelligent operatives acting under a cover with a nudge and a wink from those apparently  in charge. Many lost family and friends without justification, and many victims remain missing even today.

It may be easy for Paul Howse to glorify extrajudicial killings from the sidelines, but if we legitimise this
extrajudicial killing we legitimise them all, because each one is based not on law but on hearsay and a subjective
point of view. But such a view may not always be admissible in a court. It has no legal basis and falls far short
of the judicial and community standard. It would be open slather. What would the reaction have been had the
killers in Dubai been discovered and forced to kill others to effect an escape? A hotel worker, a hotel guest or a
tourist—would they have just been collateral damage? What would the reaction of Paul Howse have been had the

killings taken place on the streets of Sydney or Melbourne? Would the Australian media have been as accepting?
Would we have excused this as an act of a friend?

While professing to share those values that we as Australians hold dear, Mr Howes is ready to compromise
them by terminating a life without judicial warrant or excuse. If it is acceptable for one group to act outside
traditional norms and practices and kill, then it will be open to others to act in a similar way. Civilised societies
do not accept this. Democratic and fair societies certainly do not. Australia does not and would not condone
extrajudicial killings, nor can we accept being a party to them, intentionally or unintentionally. Mr Howes needs  to be reminded that in Australia we no longer have the death penalty. In fact, legislation has just passed in this  parliament to extend the current Commonwealth prohibition on the death penalty to state laws. It ensures that the  death penalty cannot be reintroduced in Australia; and extrajudicial killing, therefore, necessarily cuts against  the grain. To be involved in its commission innocently or otherwise is abhorrent and unacceptable.

The killers of al-Mabhouh, and their supporters, were willing to commit identity fraud and commit passport
and visa fraud to travel to a third country to murder an individual declared an enemy of the state by a small,
unknown and unaccountable group of individuals. In so doing, the perpetrators have trampled on the sovereignty of several nations, including our own—Australia. The reaction of the federal government, the Prime Minister and the foreign minister is entirely appropriate. The use of forged Australian passports is now being investigated by the Australian Federal Police and other agencies. Action will no doubt be taken if the evidence obtained warrants it.

Rest assured that any further action by the Australian government will not involve extrajudicial punishment.
As a society Australians have always championed legal rights. Evidence is collected by the police and assessed
by the state’s legal officers. If that evidence warrants them, charges may be laid against an accused. Due process  is observed. The evidence is presented in a court of law. If the accused is found guilty, punishment is handed out according to law—not according to what I think, not according to what Paul Howes thinks, but according to the law. Justice is not only done; it is seen to be done. It is the foundation of our Australian democracy and it is the foundation of our Australian society. I shudder to think where we might be without it,but I shuddered even more when I read the last paragraph of Paul Howes’s article:
Therefore, it is in our nation’s interest to do whatever we can to remove these vile people from power—by any means  necessary.
Paul Howes—judge, jury and executioner.

One meaning of the Israel/Australia bond is selling weapons to the other

Published on 16 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

This from the Electronic Intifada in February:

Despite Israel’s oppressive tactics against it, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement has marked additional victories with many institutional investors divesting from or blacklisting Israeli military contractor Elbit Systems. One of the largest Dutch pension funds told The Electronic Intifada today that it is selling off its shares in Elbit.

The wave of divestment follows campaigning by Palestinian organizations and international solidarity activists to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation.

A crucial role was played by the Palestinian Stop the Wall Campaign in convincing the Norwegian State Pension Fund to divest from Elbit Systems last September. In response, Israel detained campaign activist Mohammad Othman after he returned from a trip to Norway where he met Minister of Finance Kristin Halvorsen. Subject to office raids and its activists arrested, Stop the Wall has become a key target of Israeli attempts to suppress the nonviolent movement BDS. However, these repressive tactics haven’t stopped the BDS momentum.

In early September, Norway’s Minister of Finance Kristin Halvorsen announced that the Norwegian State Pension Fund had sold its shares in Elbit, worth $5.4 million. The pension fund’s Council on Ethics assessed that investments in Elbit constitute an unacceptable risk of contributing to serious violations of fundamental ethical norms because of the company’s involvement in the construction of Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank. “We do not wish to fund companies that so directly contribute to violations of international humanitarian law,” Halvorsen explained.

According to the Who Profits from the Occupation? website, a subsidiary of Elbit also supplies the Israeli army with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to the Israeli army. These UAVs, better known as drones, are used during Israeli military attacks in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

So what has Australia done?

Elbit Systems Ltd won a $300 million contract on Monday to supply the Australian Army with command-and-control systems for its ground forces. The system will be similar to the Tzayad C4I system recently inaugurated by the IDF Ground Forces Command.

…

Under the contract with the Australians, Elbit will provide capabilities that  will increase the commander’s battlespace awareness, automate combat messaging and assist in the execution of operations. Installation of the system on military vehicles, as well as the portable version carried by infantry commanders, will significantly reduce the risk of friendly fire incidents.

Don’t touch small, delicate little Israel, says wannabe Jewish Zionist

Published on 16 March 2010 in Israel. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Murdoch attack-dog Andrew Bolt worries that the West is “selling out Israel” – yes, saying anything critical of the Jewish state is clearly one step away from anti-Semitism – and then this:

I understand from excellent sources that Israel is alarmed by Kevin Rudd’s increasingly hostile comments (esepcially these) and policies, and major Labor donors among the Jewish Left are finding it much harder to reach for their wallets.

Australian mainstream newspaper dares to say a few things about East Jerusalem

Published on 16 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

For the Sydney Morning Herald, yesterday’s editorial is pretty strong. A sign, perhaps, that the Zionist lobby isn’t always running the agenda in the corporate media:

Stephen Smith, the Foreign Minister, is right to be outraged by Israel’s announcement last week of plans for 1600 houses for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem. Venturing beyond Australia’s usual safe diplomatic language on the Arab-Israeli conflict, Smith called it “a bad decision at the wrong time” and “not a helpful contribution to the peace process”. The timing – just as Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, arrived in Israel to help restart peace talks – could hardly have been worse. Smith was still smarting from unresolved tensions with Israel over the use of forged Australian passports in the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, widely believed to be the work of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Even more than that episode, the tactless announcement over East Jerusalem highlights Israel’s apparent disregard for the role of goodwill in relations with even its closest allies.

Palestinians see East Jerusalem as their future capital, should a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict ever come to pass. Yet the housing plan is just one more event in a process by which the Israeli government has been busily remaking East Jerusalem in Israel’s own image, often disregarding Arab heritage. Jewish tourist parks, conservation areas and archaeological digs have sprouted in Palestinian districts. There are reports that Israel plans to build another 50,000 housing units in East Jerusalem over the next few years. Shocked, angered and embarrassed enough just by hearing of the plan for 1600 houses, Biden condemned it as “precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now”.

The undermining was a product of the inability of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to control his coalition of right-wing and religious parties since he took power a year ago. The housing announcement came from Eli Yishai, the Interior Minister, who is head of the right-wing Sephardic-Orthodox party, which champions Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. Israel’s defence ministry quickly deplored the announcement as “unwarranted”. Yet however deep the divisions are among Israelis themselves, Netanyahu’s failure at least to reprimand his minister publicly leaves questions over how serious he is about pushing ahead with a peace deal.

The affair has harmed prospects for the so-called “proximity talks”, in which Israelis and Palestinians are to meet separately with American mediators. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, has threatened to pull out, saying Palestinians have been “given the finger by Netanyahu”. Since late 2008, Australia has supported a freeze on Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. We must now follow this through and bring what pressure we can on Israel to grasp the goodwill so vital to the peace process.

Israel’s Dubai hit continues the country’s moral decline

Published on 14 March 2010 in General and Israel. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

My following article is published on the Huffington Post:

Israel is facing a revolt from the Jewish Diaspora.

“Intifada” is an Arabic word meaning “shaking off”, as one would violently discard a scorpion. Israel is managing its own “intifada” from within.

I write as a 36-year-old Australian Jew who has recently signed, with 37 Australian Jews, a petition in which I renounced my right of return to Israel. I simply couldn’t accept the dispossession of Palestinians while my rights were deemed more important than the indigenous inhabitants.

Following similar initiatives in America and Britain, Australia – a country long-counted as a major supporter of Israel – now sees prominent Jews, including world-renowned ethicist Peter Singer, claim in the statement that the right of return is a “form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.”

This could not be more different from the atmosphere surrounding last December’s Australia-Israel Leadership Forum, the largest contingent of Israeli politicians and journalists to ever visit Australia. They found a very receptive audience. The Liberal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was effusive: “I’d like to think that nowhere in the world [does Israel] have stauncher friends than us.”

Israel has always found bi-partisan support in Australia. Ever since 1948 – when the United Nations chairmanship was held by the pro-Zionist, Australian Foreign Minister “Doc” Evatt – Israel has taken Australia’s unquestioning friendship as a given. The current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Labor government is no exception. Rudd once said that support for Israel was in his DNA.

This history makes the current strain in diplomatic relations between Israel and Australia all the more unusual. When it emerged in late February that Israel’s Mossad had allegedly forged Australian passports – as well as those of other foreign nationals – for its assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January, the Rudd government was publicly livid.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith called in the Israel Ambassador Yuval Rotem and used uncharacteristically harsh diplomatic language. If evidence was found that directly implicated Israel, Smith averred, “then Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend.”

A headline in the Sydney Morning Herald captured the mood: “Betrayed PM [Prime Minister] should not be taken for granted by Israel“. The Melbourne Age’s Diplomatic Editor Daniel Flitton argued that, “a long friendship is on the line“.

I was saddened to see the leaders of the Australian Jewish community remain either silent or incapable of condemning the abuse of Australian passports. They will defend every Israeli action like a mantra.

There was almost no precedent for navigating these choppy waters. Australia’s cast-iron backing for Israel in the United Nations began to falter, with the country abstaining from a resolution about the Goldstone Report that demanded Israel and the Palestinians investigate possible war crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. Australia had wholeheartedly backed the original invasion with vigour.

But any short-term troubles in the relationship won’t last. Canberra is too intimately tied to the US alliance to seriously undermine one of Washington’s other key allies. During President Obama’s upcoming Australian visit, the Mossad hit is unlikely to be discussed. Believing in Israeli infallibility is almost a matter of faith within Australia’s governing elites.

One rare example of an ally of Israel pushing back was New Zealand, which suspended diplomatic ties with Israel from two years in 2004 after it was discovered that Israeli citizens were trying to steal the identity of a man with severe physical disabilities. Two Mossad agents were sentenced and imprisoned for conspiring against the country’s sovereignty.

New Zealand until recently had a history of diplomatic freedom. In 1984, then Prime Minister David Lange banned the arrival of American nuclear-armed war-ships, causing a rift with Washington but signalling a world-leading example of fierce independence.

Media coverage of the Dubai scandal has been devastating. London’s Guardian was scathing: “Our government seems to be fine with letting the Israeli secret service wage its war with Hamas under a British flag.”

This incident strikes at the heart of Israel’s declining reputation, benefits the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against individuals and corporations that profit from Israel and highlights frustration over Israel’s intransigence in the West Bank and Gaza.

I am a Jew who feels deeply implicated in Israel’s reckless behaviour and cannot remain silent anymore.

While a recent Gallop poll in America found that for the first time since 1991 more than six in ten respondents said their sympathies in the Middle East lay more with the Israelis than the Palestinians, these figures are deceptive. Studies of young American Jews finds a growing disillusionment with the Jewish state and inter-marriage is contributing to the Zionist brain-drain. The internet has opened my eyes to these trends, a rejection of the post-Holocaust reliance on blind adherence to Israel.

The extra-judicial murder in Dubai merely adds fuel to the growing voices of Jewish dissent. Jewish writers Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv claimed in the Atlantic Monthly that, “Mabhouh’s passing definitely sets Hamas back, at least for a few months.”

I suspect the cost to Israel’s image will last far longer.

Australians demanding our government defend citizens in Palestine

Published on 14 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

The following article by Pip Hinman appears in this week’s Green Left Weekly:

Bridget Chappell, an Australian solidarity worker in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, was arrested by occupying Israeli forces on February 7 and threatened with deportation for simply engaging in peaceful protests alongside Palestinians.

Solidarity activists have asked Australia’s foreign affairs department to intervene in support of Chappell to allow her to continue her work in the West Bank.

Chappell was arrested in a pre-dawn raid for alleged “visa irregularities” — even though she had a valid bridging visa.

At the time, Chappell’s arrest featured prominently in the Australian media. But since the Israeli Supreme Court declared her arrest illegal and released them on bail on February 9 the case has faded from view.

Chappell is fighting to be able to continue her work in the West Bank with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) — a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using non-violent direct action.

She is also fighting attempts by the Israeli government to have her deported — the fate of other ISM volunteers.

Israel’s “war on protest” — as Israeli daily Haaretz put it — is intended to undermine a joint non-violent campaign by international activists and Palestinian villagers challenging a land grab by Israel as it builds the separation wall on farmland in the West Bank.

The arrests are in response to those organising protests against the wall.

The last major confrontation between Israel and the ISM resulted in deaths and injuries of international activists at the hands of the Israeli army. The horrendous case of US ISM volunteer Rachel Corrie, who was run down and killed by an army bulldozer in 2003 as she attempted to stop a home demolition in Gaza, is the most well known.

On March 10, the Haifa District Court began hearing eyewitness testimonies in a civil lawsuit filed by Corrie’s family against the state of Israel for her unlawful killing.

Chappell told Green Left Weekly that she is very worried about being able stay. She said Israel does not want people, like herself, bearing witness to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, and its continued settlement building.

She is concerned that Australia’s consular assistance has been minimal. Given the Australian government’s close relationship with Israel, a number of people have signed a letter, drafted by the Sydney Stop the War Coalition, urging the foreign affairs department to assist Chappell.

The letter states that Chappell was not participating in “illegal riots”, as claimed by the arresting officials, and that she “was certainly not involved in the dirty business of scamming passports to assassinate political leaders – as agents of the Israeli state have allegedly been recently caught out doing”.

The statement concluded: “We would like to know what Australian consular officials are doing to assist Ms Chappell. She should be allowed to return to the West Bank; she should not be deported.”

Signatories include (organisations listed for identification purposes only): John Pilger; Antony Loewenstein; Archdeacon Philip Newman; Dr Jake Lynch (Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sydney University), Peter Slezak (School of History amd Philosophy, UNSW), Vivienne Porzsolt (Jews Against the Occupation), Cathy Peters (Marrickville Greens councillor), Ned Curthoys (Australian National University), Peter Boyle (Socialist Alliance) and Sonja Karkar (Australians for Palestine).

[You can read the full letter, and add your name, at Stopwarcoalition.org. Pip Hinman is an activist in the Sydney Stop the War Coalition.]

Hanging refugees out to dry, courtesy of the Australian authorities

Published on 13 March 2010 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

This proposed collusion between the UN and Australia, to remove a potential headache for Kevin Rudd in an election year, should be condemned in the strongest possible sense.

Sri Lanka and Afghanistan remain highly dangerous nations for minorities and dissidents. The idea that the Australian government will be sending refugees back to their nations of origin is morally repugnant and possibly even illegal, especially if the individuals face a serious risk of persecution when back home (as has happened many times before):

The United Nations refugee agency is looking at changing its international protection guidelines for Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers.

The changes would pave the way for Australia to send many more of the detainees on Christmas Island back to where they started.

The Tamil Association is urging against any change to the guidelines, saying it is no safer for Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The protracted civil war in Sri Lanka ended last May with the Tamil Tigers admitting defeat. The UN Refugee Agency has decided it is time to review the guidelines for assessing the international protection of Sri Lankan asylum seekers.

The regional representative for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Richard Towle, says January’s presidential election is a key factor in the UN’s reassessment.

“Well, I don’t want to pre-empt what the guidelines will say, but clearly there has been a significant number of people who’ve left the camp populations in Sri Lanka, and are in the process of returning to their places and regions of origin,” he said.

“There’s a long way to go in terms of a rehabilitation and dealing with humanitarian issues, but it’s certainly moving in the right direction and we think any review of the guidelines needs to reflect these positive changes.”

The UN is a key source of evidence used by Australia to determine refugee claims.

Since the beginning of 2009, 843 Sri Lankan asylum seekers have been intercepted on their way to Australia and sent to Christmas Island. Just over a third have so far been granted refugee status and visas.

Passport scandal? What passport scandal?

Published on 13 March 2010 in Israel. 3 Comments Tags: , , .

(Via Michael Brull):

Australian Jewish News, p 3, Friday March 12 2009

This week (Tuesday night) [Australian] Treasurer Wayne Swan spoke at UIA (United Israel Appeal) and explained that Australia and Israel would “always be great friends”. He went on that “Australia and Israel will always be great friends – even if questions do arise between us from time to time as they have in recent weeks. What matters is that two great friends can get through such times, with lessons learnt.”

When Barack Obama goes Down Under

Published on 12 March 2010 in General and Israel. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

My following article appears in the Huffington Post:

The arrival of the new American Ambassador to Australia was breathlessly welcomed by the Australia media pack in late 2009. Jeffrey Bleich, an American lawyer from California, assumed his position in Canberra and was introduced to the country through an interview on the public broadcaster ABC.

After the reporter Leigh Sales congratulated Bleich on his appointment, he was treated to softball questions and allowed to outline, unchallenged, the Obama administration’s agenda.

Sales and Bleich joked over the ambassador’s Elvis obsession but substantive questions were almost absent (or follow-ups probing Bleich’s non-answers). No comments about Obama’s continuation of Bush administration policies towards indefinite detention of terror suspects and warrantless wiretapping.

On the eve of Obama’s first visit to Australia in late March, the Sydney Morning Herald’s political editor Peter Hartcher informed his readers that, “the remark by the US ambassador to Australia that his kids are brushing up on their Wii skills is a marker of the rejuvenation of the alliance.”

Hartcher wrote:

“By bringing his family, Obama will give a new generation of Australians a sense of connection with their country’s chief ally… Where the relationship between [former Australian Prime Minister John] Howard and [George W.] Bush was forged in the fire of September 11 terrorism and the Afghan and Iraq invasions that followed, [Australian Prime Minister Kevin] Rudd and Obama have developed a post-crisis partnership.”

Both leaders would be able to “share satisfaction in the early progress of the new strategy in Afghanistan.”

The American/Australian alliance has always been built on supporting Washington’s wars, despite public opinion often opposing these engagements (such as the current Afghan deployment).

After the humanitarian and military disaster in Iraq, the only reason to maintain Australian troops in Afghanistan is to try and regain Washington’s credibility; a difficult task when civilians continue being killed. Australia’s objective has therefore nothing to do with bringing freedom and democracy to Afghanistan.

Furthermore, Australians troops are suspected of committing war crimes in the country and military lawyers are inadequately trained to assess possible breaches of humanitarian law in the field.

A senior Australian Army media adviser who served in Afghanistan and Iraq accused the Australian government of a culture of excessive spin and unnecessary secrecy, lying about local engagement with the civilian populations and obscuring the mission’s purpose.

There is little discussion in the corporate media over what Australian troops are actually doing in Afghanistan. Instead, the public are mostly treated to articles advocating military escalation. Take this recent piece by Rupert Murdoch columnist, Greg Sheridan, arguing that, “a serious ally would take the lead in a province, as we did in Vietnam.” Public opinion, or morality, is damned.

America has consistently thanked Australia for its reliability. George W. Bush awarded John Howard the Presidential Medal of Freedom in early 2009. Bush said that, “He [Howard] never wavered in his support for liberty, and free institutions, and the rule of law as the true and hopeful alternatives to ideologies of violence and repression. That’s why I called him a man of steel.”

Howard was a full backer of Bush’s “war on terror”, including Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition.

Britain’s Tony Blair and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe were also awarded at the White House ceremony.

Managing the alliance between America and Australia takes little work or imagination from Washington. They have a country desperate to keep on its good side, able to offer its own thoughts but likely to fall into line, no matter what. Washington rightly believes that Australia watches over the Pacific, influencing and pressuring small nations heavily reliant on foreign aid.

Some mainstream commentators have suggested that Obama’s upcoming trip should allow serious discussion about China and energy co-operation.

But Obama’s fortunes are dwindling in America and key policies, on health and climate change, are stalled with little positive resolution expected any time soon. Although a senior Australian minister claimed last week that Obama’s visit would “generate a great deal of interest from the Australian public“, I know of a number of anti-war groups who will peacefully protest America’s ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and support for Israel.

Australian backing for America isn’t automatic and requires constant massaging by embedded journalists. The Australian-American Leadership Dialogue is a regular and private gathering of the political elites from both countries. Senior journalists, most of whom never disclose their participation, regularly return from meetings praising American initiatives.

As far as I know, there has never been a comprehensive article in the mainstream press that debunks the agenda of the Dialogue or the opinion-shapers involved. Instead, we are treated to occasional references without context.

Australia has long suffered from an inferiority complex towards its super-power boss. Disagreements aren’t unknown between Washington and Canberra – Kevin Rudd refused to help re-settle released Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay despite a request from the Obama administration – but Australia is far more comfortable seeing America as an irreplaceable friend who supposedly shares the same values. China is only a vitally important trading partner.

There is no doubt that Obama himself remains popular in Australia – his allegedly charming demeanour is still profiled in gossip magazines – but the mainstream media reports the torturous progress of the Democrat’s health care bill and the political effectiveness of the Tea Party movement.

Obama’s upcoming visit will be primarily an opportunity for Kevin Rudd in an election year to bask in the glow of a President whose popularity is diving in America but remains buoyant globally.

At a time when America’s ability to shape events in vast swathes of the world are in decline, including throughout South America and the Middle East, Obama will be pleased to visit an unquestioning ally.

How many Australian passports may have been used in Dubai?

Published on 9 March 2010 in Israel. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

If Australia was an independent nation, it would be outraged. Don’t hold your breath:

A fourth Australian has been named as a suspect in the assassination of a Palestinian militant in a Dubai hotel room in January.

Dubai police last week revealed a 27th suspect in the team of assassins it believed was responsible for killing Hamas commander Mahmoud Al Mabhouh.

More than half those identified share names with Israeli citizens with dual nationality.

Now, Interpol has released details of most of the suspects on its website and has named the latest suspect as Joshua Aaron Krycer.

The real Joshua Krycer apparently lives in Jerusalem and moved to Israel from Australia a few years ago.

A 2006 online newsletter of the Zionist Federation of Australia contains a photograph of Joshua Krycer.

The newsletter says he is a speech pathologist among a group of Australians working at a hospital in Jerusalem.

Three other Australians, Nicole McCabe, Joshua Bruce and Adam Korman, allegedly had their identities stolen and used in some of the fake passports held by the alleged assassins.

All of them deny any involvement in the assassination and say they have no knowledge of how their passport identities were stolen.

Dubai police have said they are 99 per cent sure that Israel was behind the assassination of Mabhouh, who was smothered with a pillow after being injected with a powerful muscle relaxant.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has told ABC2 News Breakfast he will not comment on the latest development.

“So far as we’re concerned we regard this matter very much as operational,” he said.

“We’ve been working very closely with the the UAE authorities on this matter.

“I’m not proposing to be drawn on speculation on what we regard very much as operational matters.”

Interpol says the 27 suspects named by Dubai police worked in two separate groups.

They say a smaller core group carried out the killing, while the second team helped by watching, following and reporting on Mabhouh’s movements.

Dubai police say 12 British citizens, six Irish, four French and one German all had their passport details stolen and used in the assassination.

Australia’s responsibility to asylum seekers

Published on 8 March 2010 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The following statement was released today by refugee activists from Australia, Canada and Indonesia:

“The Merak refugees and the Indonesian Solution, not people smuggling, should be at the top of the agenda for discussions between the Australian government and Indonesian  President Yudhoyono,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.

“The Australian government is trying to implicate the Indonesian government in its violation of the Refugee Convention. That is not the action of a friend. The Indonesian solution is actually making things worse for refugees in Indonesia and actually forcing more people onto boats. Resettlement must be on the agenda.”

“Kevin Rudd uses people smuggling to criminalise the refugees themselves to justify detention in Australia and Indonesia. But the problem is not people smuggling. The problem is that there is secure future for refugees in Indonesia.

“Until the Australian government is willing to process and resettle refugees out of Indonesia, the boats will keep coming. Heavier penalties and stiffer sentences will not stop people fleeing persecution,” said Rintoul.

March 10, the day the Indonesian President addresses the Australian parliament will also mark the 150th day that the refugee boat has been stranded at Merak.

There is an urgent need for the Australian and Indonesian governments to resolve the situation at Merak. Kevin Rudd made the call to president Yudhoyono to stop the Jaya Lestari in October last year. One of the Tamil asylum seekers died on 23 December 2009 waiting for proper medical attention. Medical attention at the boat have improved in the last few days, but the asylum seekers are still refusing to leave the boat until there is a guarantee of resettlement.

“The asylum seekers on the boat are ultimately Australia’s responsibility. Until there is an enduring outcome for refugees in Australia, they will, sooner or later, make their way to Australia. Some people have already left the boat to do that,” said Ian Rintoul.

“The Australian and Indonesian governments must use President Yudhoyono’s state visit to put an end to the suffering and uncertainty of the refugees at Merak and the others in detention in Indonesia.

Refugee advocates in Australia, Canada and Indonesia have issued a joint statement (attached) calling for the Indonesian government to begin immigration verification and UNHCR processing and for the Australian government to commit to resettling those at Merak found to be refugees.

Dershowitz backs extra-judicial murder (and torture)

Published on 7 March 2010 in Israel. 13 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has a love affair with Israel that has no bounds.

It’s therefore unsurprising that he supports Israel’s recent assassination in Dubai:

The complaints leveled against Israel by European countries and Australia, regarding the alleged misuse of passports by the Mossad in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, ring hollow and smack of blatant hypocrisy.  Whoever did kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh—whether it was the Israeli Mossad or someone else—clearly did have their agents use stolen or forged passports.  Big deal.

Every good intelligence agency uses stolen and forged passports.  The British have been especially adept at this means of spycraft.  No country that uses fake passports in their intelligence operations has the moral authority to complain about the alleged misuse of passports in this case.  The only ones that have a legitimate grievance are those individuals whose passports may have been misused without their knowledge.

I guess it’s the job of foreign ministries to complain publicly when other nations do what they themselves do secretly.  Hypocrisy is, after all, the homage that vice pays to virtue.  I’m reminded of the famous scene in Casablanca, when officer Renault declares, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” A croupier then approaches Renault, and hands him a roll of currency: “Your winnings, sir.”

The hypocrisy in this case seems even more blatant than usual.  Is it because Israel is the alleged offender, and the world has gotten accustomed to singling out Israel for double standard condemnation?

Shortly after the terrorist attacks in Bali, which killed a large number of Australian tourists, I had the opportunity to meet with the Australian Prime Minister.  I was writing a book at the time on preemption, and I asked him whether he would have authorized a preemptive attack on the terrorist who killed Australian citizens, if such an attack would have saved their lives.  His response was that Australia would have done anything it could, to prevent these terrorist attacks.  Anything, I guess, except misusing passports!  Is there anybody who believes that Australia would not have used forged or stolen passports to prevent the Bali massacres?  If Great Britain could have stopped the London subway attack by misusing passports, would M6 have allowed the terrorism to go forward in the name of preserving passport integrity?  Of course not.  The same is true of Spain with regard to the Madrid bombing and to every other country in the world that seeks to prevent terrorism.  Well, if the Mossad did in fact kill al-Mabhouh, they too did it to prevent the killing of their innocent civilians.

Australian Jews reject ‘right of return’

Published on 7 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The following appears in this week’s Green Left Weekly:

A petition signed by 35 distinguished Australian Jews rejecting the automatic right of Jews from anywhere in the world to settle in Israel is printed below. Under the racist “law of return”, Jews do not need to have any connection with Israel to obtain citizenship. Signatories include ethicist Peter Singer, feminist campaigner Eva Cox, author and journalist Antony Loewenstein and writer Sara Dowse.

We are Jews from Australia, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return”. While this law may seem intended to enable a Jewish homeland, we submit that it is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.

Today there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land — a right recognised and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish, thereby potentially taking the place of Palestinians who would dearly love to return to their ancestral lands.

We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.

Trusting Aussie spies is a fool’s game

Published on 6 March 2010 in General. 1 Comment Tags: .

Former Australian soldier and now journalist Sasha Uzunov examines the history of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and finds a spotty record at best:

It is both tragic and comical but ASIO has a poor record in catching the bad guys. The 1970s infiltration of Australia by then Yugoslav communist spies is a classic case.

Australia dares not offend Israel even when crimes are clear

Published on 6 March 2010 in Israel. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

The latest on the Australia/Israel Mossad scandal:

The Australian government is far from satisfied with the response so far from Israel on the alleged use of Australian passports by a Mossad death squad.

In an interview with the Herald, a restrained Kevin Rudd said no more information had been forthcoming since Australia first protested last week.

”There is a way to go yet with our friends in Israel to resolving these matters to the satisfaction of the Australian government,” the Prime Minister said.

”We continue to be in contact with them. We’ll continue to work with our friends in Israel through multiple agencies and at the political level as well.”

…

The federal opposition has been conspicuous in its refusal to criticise Israel.

A week ago the Liberal senator Julian McGauran released a statement attacking the government for criticising Israel.

He said the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, should ‘’start acting more like Australia’s chief diplomat and stop publicly pointing the finger at Israel as the culprit of the Mahmoud al-Mabhouh assassination”.

“The government has failed to delink their outrage of the forged passports from the assassination of the Hamas terrorist,” he said. ”They are two separate issues. The tracking down of terrorist leaders is an acceptable act in the context of the war on terror.”

The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, refused to comment when asked whether he stood by Senator McGauran’s statement.

Later, he defended Israel, saying nobody knew the full story.

”Before I start, or anyone else starts questioning the motives of other countries, I think we should get to the bottom of this,” he said. ”I don’t want to assume bad faith on the part of a friendly democracy.”

Mr Rudd did not want to comment when asked by the Herald about the Coalition’s decision to defend Israel.

”I’m a lifelong supporter, defender and friend of the state of Israel …” he said. ”However, when it comes to this particular matter, I have a responsibility as Australian Prime Minister to get to the bottom of it and to establish that Australia’s interests are being properly safeguarded in the future and I will do that.”

Demanding Australia stand up for its citizens in the West Bank

Published on 6 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Back in February an Australian was arrested in the West Bank and roughed up by Israeli authorities.

The following letter has been sent to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade by Stop the War Coalition:

Attention:

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

March X, 2010

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are writing to request that Australian diplomatic authorities in Israel demand that Bridget Chappell, wrongly arrested on charges of overstaying her visa, be allowed to continue her work in the West Bank.

We understand that she and a Spanish colleague were arrested in a dramatic pre-dawn raid on her office in Ramallah, Palestine, and handed over to the immigration police on the basis. Her crime? Visa irregularities, apparently.

In fact, Ms Chappell was in possession of a notification confirming an appointment with the visa authorities, which had been cancelled once and postponed once by them, and then rescheduled for March 2. It had worked like a visa at checkpoints until then.

Not only were the two young women treated as if they were terror suspects, they were denied access to lawyers or a phone and told to sign documents or face six months in prison.

Ms Chappell and Ms Marti were released from Givon, a deportation prison in Ramallah, after the Israeli Supreme Court declared their arrest illegal on February 9.

Ms Chappell’s lawyers are appealing both the bail conditions which prevent her from returning to her work in the West Bank and deportation orders in the District Court in Jerusalem.

We are concerned that Australian consular officials are not pressing her case with the Israeli authorities.

Given that Ms Chappell’s charges were thrown out of court, added to the fact that there is evidence that she had made every reasonable effort to extend her visa, preventing her from returning to the West Bank would seem to be a crude political excercise.

Ms Chappell was not participating in “illegal riots”, as claimed by the arresting officials. She was certainly not involved in the dirty business of scamming passports to assassinate political leaders – as agents of the Israeli state have been recently caught out doing.

Ms Chappell’s “crime” is to highlight the injustices of Israel’s criminal occupation of the West Bank. For that the Israeli government wants to deport her. This has serious ramifications for organisations like the International Solidarity Movement and other such solidarity organisations.

We would like to know what Australian consular officials are doing to assist Ms Chappell. She should be allowed to return to the West Bank; she should not be deported.

Yours sincerely,

Thoughts over prosecuting black and white war criminals

Published on 3 March 2010 in General and Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

A fascinating case – holding those to account behind the Rwandan genocide is essential to dealing with that catastrophe – that highlights the fundamental flaw in our international system. Western leaders are always exempt from arrest. Is the Western world seriously saying that only black people and a few others are guilty of war crimes? No Americans or Israelis or Palestinians or French or even Australians?

After 12 years living a quiet existence in a suburb near Paris, the widow of the assassinated Rwandan president whose death triggered the largest mass slaughter of the 20th century, was arrested yesterday. She is accused of helping mastermind the 1994 genocide.

The detention of Agathe Habyarimana, dubbed “Lady Genocide” by some, came less than a week after President Nicolas Sarkozy became the first French head of state to visit Rwanda for 25 years. During a brief stopover in the capital Kigali he issued a semi-apology for France’s “serious errors” over the genocide.

The government in Rwanda which is preparing a formal extradition request has long sought the arrest of the widow – an ethnic Hutu like her husband – who was detained at her home in Courcouronnes, south of Paris shortly before 8am. She was later released but forbidden from leaving the country and ordered to report to a French judge once a month. She now faces a fight to avoid being sent back to a country she last saw on 9 April, 1994, three days after her husband’s jet was shot down close to Kigali airport.

Mrs Habyarimana, who claims her influence did not extend beyond the president’s domestic arrangements, escaped the orgy of killing that left 800,000 people dead in 100 days. She was helped to escape across the border into Congo by French forces.

This account is disputed by many inside Rwanda where it is alleged she ran “Clan de Madame”, an elite clique including senior army officers who developed the movement that would become known as “Hutu Power”. Yesterday’s move by the French authorities was warmly welcomed in Kigali. “At long last the long arm of the law is finally taking its course,” said Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama.

Israeli film screening put on hold in Australia

Published on 3 March 2010 in Israel. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

How long do we think Australia’s relationship with Israel will be apparently strained? A few weeks? A month? Maybe longer? This story is certainly interesting:

The screening of an Israeli film in Parliament House has been postponed amid heightened tensions between Australia and Israel.

Three Australian passports were fraudulently used in the assassination of a political figure in Dubai last month. Dubai police suspect Israel was behind the murder.

Israel’s ambassador was summoned to Parliament House last week in a rare test of the usually solid bilateral relationship.

Now a screening of the Israeli film Noodle, scheduled to be shown in Parliament House on March 15, has been postponed.

The screening was arranged by the Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, and by the Australia Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group. The evening was billed as “a celebration of Israeli culture” and was to include a reception.

The event has been postponed to June.

Last week Australia abstained in a vote regarding Israel in the United Nations General Assembly, sparking claims the passport affair was affecting the bilateral relationship.

Officers from the Australian Federal Police are on their way to Israel to investigate the passport issue.