Antony Loewenstein

What would a day be without lies, slander and mad exaggeration from the Murdoch media about Israel and its critics? After running one article this week, by Stuart Rees, that explained how BDS isn’t the work of the devil, the paper is back to its usual hyperbolic self. The clear tactic is to charge anybody who advocates non-violent pressure on occupying Israel as a zealot. Unfortunately for them, BDS is growing and Israel is becoming an increasingly paranoid and violent state.

Here’s the page 3 story in The Australian with a massive headline:

Pro-Palestinian academic Jake Lynch has rejected accusations that the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign is anti-Semitic, describing such claims as a “cynical smear” by supporters of Israel.

Professor Lynch, who heads Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies which supports an academic boycott of Israel, laid into Coalition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop over her promise to cut funding to institutions that support BDS. He said such threats were “a straightforward violation of intellectual freedom” that would undermine a key pillar of democracy.

But last night Ms Bishop stood her ground, and for the first time described Professor Lynch’s campaign as anti-Jewish.

“Mr Lynch is free to raise funds from non-government sources if he requires money to fund his campaign against the state of Israel and Jewish people,” she told The Australian. “A Coalition government would seek to withdraw funding to any academic institution that used taxpayer funds for an anti-Semitic campaign.”

Professor Lynch yesterday addressed a discussion forum at Sydney University entitled “65 Years of Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing: Why you should boycott Israel today”, hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine.

After Sydney University authorities forcefully rejected Professor Lynch’s calls to cut ties with Israeli academic institutions, the student representative council last month passed a resolution supporting him and BDS.

Students at the University of NSW recently rallied against the decision to grant a lease on campus to the Australian franchise of Israel-based chocolate shop chain Max Brenner.

During that protest large numbers of fiercely anti-Semitic, and anti-Islamic, posts were placed on the campaign’s Facebook page.

In his address yesterday, Professor Lynch, a British journalist turned academic, unreservedly condemned the racist posts.

He said attempts to equate BDS with anti-Semitism reflected alarm among the pro-Israel lobby that it was losing the battle of international public opinion.

“It’s a cynical smear, it’s been ramped up in desperation,” he said.

As evidence mounted from UN investigations and other sources, Professor Lynch said, it was becoming more difficult for Israel and its supporters to deny what he claimed were war crimes, apartheid-style oppression of Palestinians, and breaches of international law. He noted the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict, known as the Goldstone Report, had in 2009 accused both the Israeli Defence Forces and Palestinian militants of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

“Nothing happens to Israel as a result of these actions,” Professor Lynch asserted. “In my view the BDS campaign is not a campaign against Israel as such, but against Israeli militarism and lawlessness,” he said.

A spokesman for the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, Tzvi Fleischer, said “we believe BDS is anti-Semitic in its implications, though not everyone in it is necessarily anti-Semitic”.

He dismissed Professor Lynch’s claims of a smear as “a traditional tactic of the BDS”.

Then an opinion piece that could have been written by the Israeli press office. Columnist Cassandra Wilkinson obviously isn’t very good at using Google because Greens MP David Shoebridge, quoted in her article, denies ever having made the comment attributed to him. He told me this personally today. For the record, it was fellow NSW Greens MP John Kaye. Then again, who fact checks the opinion page apart from a pro-settler, neo-conservative “editor”?

AS MPs prepare to sign the London Declaration on Combating Anti-Semitism, it’s timely to speak more openly about the bonds of convenience growing between elements of the Left and anti-Semitism.

The clearest example was the Greens’ promotion of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign that happily saw them come to grief in the NSW state seat of Marrickville. The BDS movement seeks to shut down militant agents of Palestinian oppression such as the Max Brenner chocolate shop. No doubt the coming revolution of their imagination will provide a politburo-approved carob alternative to Mr Brenner’s treats.

The student activists who tried to prevent the University of NSW from allowing Mr Brenner to open on campus, claimed the BDS campaign was initiated in 2005.

Such sloppy referencing and fact-checking wouldn’t pass muster on their exams, I hope. As it happens, I studied history at UNSW — something the protesters could profit from before they graduate. A basic grasp of history shows us the boycotting of businesses is a longstanding tactic in the campaign of hate against the Jewish people.

Boycotts of Jewish merchants were practised in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire and later across eastern Europe, especially in Romania, Poland and Russia where anti-Jewish activism was serious enough to bequeath us the word pogrom. In 1922, the Fifth Palestine Arab Congress called for a boycott of all Jewish businesses. In 1943, the Arab League banned the purchase of “products of Jewish industry”. Note I have passed over here the not insignificant events of 1933-45 lest I fall foul of politicians such as Greens MP David Shoebridge, who accuses supporters of Israel of “using the Holocaust for political purposes”.

The BDS presents itself as a reaction to the power of the state of Israel. In reality it is the most recent name for a centuries-old economic persecution of Jews for having the temerity to become educated and entrepreneurial despite their exclusion from many occupations, geographies and institutions.

This makes it all the more ironic that the University of Sydney’s Students Representative Council would seek to ban ties with Haifa’s Technion, the world’s most successful commercialiser of university research. It isn’t a cunning reprisal, it’s an act of pointless self-harm.

Julia Gillard, to her credit, was swift to sign the London Declaration. NSW Labor leader John Robertson has followed her lead, calling the declaration “an important step in the ongoing efforts to eliminate anti-Semitism in all its forms”. But both face resistance from members of their teams who are courting the Muslim vote or flexing their ideological credentials. During a recent visit by Israeli politicians, NSW Labor MLC Shaoquett Moselmane disgraced the house by accusing Israel of running torture camps and claiming Israel is driven by a, “craving to take over other people’s lands”. His actions were rebuked by Labor MLC Walter Secord, a long-time friend of Jewish people.

Moselmane is particularly guileless in his views but others in caucus apply more subtlety to their anti-Israel positions. Several ALP members of the NSW, Victorian and federal parliaments have refused to support resolutions to condemn the BDS.

The BDS and the signing of the declaration may seem marginal with an election looming and a fresh budget to critique. It matters not as an issue of scale but as one of direction for progressive politics. It matters because, as the declaration states, there has been a “resurgence of anti-Semitism as a potent force in politics, international affairs and society”.

The student protests at UNSW and Sydney University may seem trivial or childish — hardly a “potent force in politics”. However, when a significant minority of our political leaders supports these protests it begins to be possible for them to become potent. All social change, good or bad, begins at the margin, with a campus boycott, a rally or a parliamentary debate. This is when we need to take note and nurture change that is good or discourage change that is bad.

The London Left is starting to examine the consequences of having made friends with the enemies of Israel. Seeing leading Left politicians such as Ken Livingstone posing with extremists who vilify homosexuals, women and Jews has British lefties such as Nick Cohen asking how a shared hatred of imperialism can paper over the differences between the radical Left and radical Islam.

The Left in Australia can avoid this London problem by signing the London Declaration and by sticking to its own basic principles. Stand with those who educate women, stand with those who let gays serve openly in the military, stand with those who allow free speech and political activism.

Stand, in short, with the Jewish people and their state of Israel.

Finally, in the Australian Jewish News, a newspaper that receives every Sabbath the latest press releases from the Israeli Foreign Ministry, publishes an article that is the opposite of the truth. My co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices, Peter Slezak, tells me that the story is a complete fabrication, that in fact he told the paper many times that he wasn’t going to focus on Israel at an upcoming Jewish festival and is happy to abide by the (frankly absurd) rules laid down by Limmud at its insider talk-fest. But the paper, and its Zionist lobby mates, don’t want a dissident like Slezak to be acceptable in their polite, Zionist fundamentalist world, hence the hatchet job. For the record, Slezak has been banned by Limmud for his views in 2011 and 2012.

Not to worry, friends, yet again we have the sorry sight of supposedly civilised Jews calling for censorship of views they don’t like. The Israel lobby must be so proud of itself:

The Limmud-Oz board was this week considering pulling a planned session with outspoken Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigner Dr Peter Slezak from the three-day education festival in Sydney next month.

A spokesperson for the board said that the co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices, who wasn’t permitted to address Limmud-Oz in 2011 or its Melbourne counterpart in 2012, was this year accepted for a session, “The Wicked Son – Confessions of a Self-Hating Jew”, on the condition that he would not discuss Israel.

“The Limmud board decided that, where possible, it would ‘play the ball, not the person’ and assess sessions primarily based on their proposed content rather than the presenter,” the spokesperson said.

“Limmud-Oz acknowledges that many people in the community virulently disagree with Slezak’s views and feel antagonistic towards him.”

However, Slezak told The AJN this week that Israel would be a part of his presentation.

“I never agreed not to discuss Israel,” Slezak said.

“I’m talking about self-hating Jews and the source of my problems are problems with Israel.

“They want to make sure I don’t say something scandalous. It’s no secret I want to talk about Israel.”

In the wake of Slezak’s comments, The AJN contacted the Limmud-Oz board. The spokesperson said that if the conditions reached between the two parties were breached, then they would have to discuss how to proceed.

At the time of going to press, it was unclear how the Limmud-Oz board would handle the situation. But senior members of the community confirmed the board would be meeting to consider cancelling the session.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president Yair Miller said Slezak should not be provided a ­platform.

“While everyone has the right to freely express their views, that does not impose an obligation on others to provide them with an opportunity to do so.

“If Dr Slezak has given a commitment to not speak about Israel, but now insists on doing so, it would be highly offensive to the mainstream Jewish community if his session were to take place.

“It is our view that this would not be an educational session and would therefore fall outside the guidelines of Limmud, and communal policy.”

Zionist Council of NSW honorary life president Ron Weiser said that in 2011 the Limmud-Oz organisers decided not to give Slezak a platform and they should have stuck by that policy.

“I’m extremely puzzled by this development after the issue arose in 2011,” Weiser said.

“The decisive action that the Shalom Institute took in 2011, I had assumed, ended the matter then, and into the future.”

Limmud-Oz will be held from June 8-10.

UPDATE: Peter Slezak has given me an email he sent to the Australian Jewish News a few days before its publication, confirming the lie within the piece. He clearly says he has no intention of breaking Limmud rules. The email is to a “journalist” at the paper, Joshua Levi. The publication is clearly learning its ethics from the Murdoch school of thuggery:

Dear Josh,

 

Thanks again for your time and concern to clarify my views and statements. I do appreciate it very much. I am forwarding here the email from Michala Lander at Limmud and my response. As I said, I do understand their concerns (however misguided), but I have no intention of undermining or in any way subverting our explicit agreement as indicated in these emails. You’ll see that I say the following key things which were the basis for Limmud’s acceptance of my presentation – given my undertaking to accept their conditions, as I do:

In the just financed film about the Zionist lobby group J Street, there’s an interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about the inability to sustain the Israeli occupation of Palestine for another 45 years. It’s been said many times before, and Olmert is a war criminal for his actions in Gaza and Lebanon, but his words are completely ignored and shunned in the mainstream Zionist community and conservative press. The occupation is welcomed:

Fair journalism is hard, isn’t it? Getting all the facts, putting them into sentences and writing them down accurately. I’m tired just thinking about it.

The following article appears in today’s Murdoch’s Australian. The selectivity of the piece is startling but unsurprising:

The NSW Greens have outraged Jewish leaders by organising a fundraiser cruise to support a plan for Palestinians to build an “ark” in Gaza and try to ruin the Israeli naval blockade of the territory.

Greens MP David Shoebridge used his office and website to promote a “sail in solidarity” voyage on Sydney Harbour last night to raise money for the “Gaza’s Ark” campaign.

“The economic situation in Gaza is desperate, with most of its land trade shut down by Israeli border guards, its airport destroyed by Israeli bombardments . . . and its fishing fleet coming under Israeli fire if it moves beyond six nautical miles from the coast,” Mr Shoebridge’s website says.

“Gaza’s Ark will challenge the blockade by rebuilding a boat in Gaza using Palestinian shipbuilders, load the vessel with Palestinian goods and products and sail to international waters with both Palestinians and internationals on board.

“The goal is to challenge the ongoing, illegal Israeli blockade and focus worldwide attention on Gaza and the complicity of the governments that support it or look the other way.”

The description of the project on Mr Shoebridge’s website is mild compared with the international Gaza’s Ark website, which focuses on alleged Israeli atrocities and what is claimed to be a policy of “apartheid” towards Palestinians, as well as promoting the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against the Jewish state.

Mr Shoebridge said the Gaza’s Ark project was not a BDS campaign, though he said BDS was “one of the legitimate ways” to fight against what he said was Israeli oppression.

Prominent NSW Greens who joined Mr Shoebridge on last night’s fundraiser included senator Lee Rhiannon, who has supported BDS, his fellow state upper house member John Kaye, and the preselected candidate for a Greens state upper house seat, Mehreen Faruqi.

About 50 other Palestinian supporters disembarked after a three-hour cruise on Sydney harbour last night. “It’s an excellent fundraiser and we support it as Parliamentarians for Palestine,” Senator Rhiannon said.

Mr Shoebridge has had the occasional run-in with the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, including claiming that a parliamentary visit by some state MPs other than Greens to Israel was a one-sided Israeli PR tour supported by the board.

The board’s chief executive, Vic Alhadeff, said: “The reality which Mr Shoebridge and his colleagues mischievously ignore is that all people of goodwill support the citizens of Gaza in their aspirations for a better life.

“The problem is that they suffer under the brutal Hamas regime which wages war on Israel.”

Some facts that may get in the way of a Murdoch hatchet job. Labor state and federal politicians had purchased tickets to support the event, including Laurie Ferguson, Shaoquett Moslemane and Amanda Fazio (they didn’t attend in the end, though). Union figures attending included Greg Shaw (PSA), Caroline Staples (PSA), Rita Malia (CFMEU), Ivan Simic (CFMEU), plus a number of representatives from the PGFTU and Young Labor.

Besides, since when are “Jewish leaders” monolithic and solely represented by the pro-settler and racist Zionist lobby?

Finally, opposing Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza, in a peaceful way, is wholly vital and legitimate in a democracy, unless of course you believe, as does the Israeli spokespeople who claim to be “journalists” at the Murdoch rag, that we must blindly support Israeli government policy.

I’ve attended many fund-raisers for Gaza Ark and wish I had been there last night.

The following statement was issued today by the Palestine Action Group (Sydney):

Supporters of Palestine have responded to a May 2 report in the Australian asserting that Max Brenner Israel has no direct shares in Max Brenner Australia as irrelevant to the solidarity campaign for justice in Palestine.

Palestine solidarity activists are bemused that the Australian has given front page coverage to this “scoop”. The Youtube of the rally in question, which took place on September 21, 2012, has also just been released.

The “exclusive” report quoting Patrick Harrison, a spokesperson from the Palestine Action Group, is taken from in a sarcastic Youtube made by Jeremy Moses from Varietygarage.com.

The article tries to make out that Mr Harrison is undermining his own cause by “acknowledging” that boycotting the Max Brenner outlet in Parramatta will have no financial impact on its parent company in Israel.

It also alleges that Max Brenner International “has absolutely no holding” in Max Brenner Australia.

But just because the parent company doesn’t hold shares in the Australian Max Brenner doesn’t mean that the franchisee is not connected to the parent company. Often the franchise company takes a cut and charges the franchise holder fees for the name and sometimes the equipment and supplies.

In fact, the Australian just a few days ago admitted the connection.

On April 29, the newspaper stated in a report on a protest against the establishment of a Max Brenner outlet on the University of NSW campus which took place on April 30 that:

‘Max Brenner is a brand of food and beverage Strauss group, which has been a supporter of the Israeli armed forces, including ‘adopting’ a platoon in the army’s Golani brigade.’

“This is the reason that those concerned about Israel’s apartheid policies towards Palestinians have made Max Brenner a target for protest over recent years”, said Mr Raul Bassi, another member of the Palestine Action Group.

“As Patrick Harrison and other activists explain in the Youtube in question, the protests outside Max Brenner are largely a consciousness-raising exercise. They are aimed at letting people know how close the Strauss Group – the owners of Max Brenner – is to the current Zionist government of Israel.”

Mr Patrick Langosch, another member of the Palestine Action Group, said: “The protests outside the Max Brenner outlets are also about letting Australians know about the non-violent Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign which was launched 6 years ago by Palestine civil society organisations.

“In these aims the rallies outside the Max Brenner cafes have been very successful. So much so, Australian supporters of the Israeli government – including Michael Danby MP and Paul Howes of the Australian Workers Union – have had themselves photographed patronising Max Brenner cafes”, said Mr Langosch.

The Palestine Solidarity Group also rejects the Australian’s efforts to argue that any protest against a Max Brenner store is “anti-Semitic”.

“Anti-Semitism is the belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish. The solidarity actions in support of Palestine are not anti-Semitic; they are opposed to the apartheid-like policies of the Netanyahu government, as are many Jews and Israelis”, said Mr Langosh.

Antony Loewenstein, independent journalist and author of My Israel Question, says that BDS is a legitimate and non-violent tactic, thriving globally, that targets the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine.

“Anti-Semitism has nothing to do with this movement; this is a convenient distraction by the Murdoch press and complicit Zionist lobby and I totally reject this as a Jew myself. Freedom for Palestinians will only come when Jews, Palestinians and others join together to demand justice for an occupied people. Universities and corporations who profit from this occupation deserve to be named, shamed and boycotted.”

The Palestine Action Group is calling on all supporters of Palestine to attend the Al Nakba rally on May 15. The rally marks the date that Israel was created by illegitimate means. Between 1947-1948, around half of the 1.4 million Palestinian Arabs were driven from their homes or fled to neighbouring Arab states.

The protest will call on the Australian government to speak up against the ongoing displacement of Palestinians from their land, and the laws that discriminate against Palestinians within Israel.

The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald writes about the latest example of Zionist “values” corrupting the concept of democracy, decency and fairness:

In order for the US to permit citizens of a foreign country to enter the US without a visa, that country must agree to certain conditions. Chief among them is reciprocity: that country must allow Americans to enter without a visa as well. There are 37 countries which have been permitted entrance into America’s “visa wavier” program, and all of them – all 37 – reciprocate by allowing American citizens to enter their country without a visa.

The American-Israeli Political Action Committee (Aipac) is now pushing legislation that would allow Israel to enter this program, so that Israelis can enter the US without a visa. But as JTA’s Ron Kampeas reports, there is one serious impediment: Israel has a practice of routinely refusing to allow Americans of Arab ethnicity or Muslim backgrounds to enter their country or the occupied territories it controls; it also bars those who are critical of Israeli actions or supportive of Palestinian rights. Israel refuses to relinquish this discriminatory practice of exclusion toward Americans, even as it seeks to enter the US’s visa-free program for the benefit of Israeli citizens.

As a result, at the behest of Aipac, Democrat Barbara Boxer, joined by Republican Roy Blunt, has introduced a bill that would provide for Israel’s membership in the programwhile vesting it with a right that no other country in this program has: namely, the right to exclude selected Americans from this visa-free right of entrance. In other words, the bill sponsored by these American senators would exempt Israel from a requirement that applies to every other nation on the planet, for no reason other than to allow the Israeli government to engage in racial, ethnic and religious discrimination against US citizens. As Lara Friedman explained when the Senate bill was first introduced, it “takes the extraordinary step of seeking to change the current US law to create a special and unique exception for Israel in US immigration law.” In sum, it is as pure and blatant an example of prioritizing the interests of the Israeli government over the rights of US citizens as one can imagine, and it’s being pushed by Aipac and a cast of bipartisan senators.

Earlier in the year, after the ABC broke a massive story about an Australian man Ben Zygier spying for Mossad and dying in an Israeli jail, there was a great deal of media coverage that questioned the ways in which some Jews saw their relationship with the Israeli state. I was interviewed on ABC Radio AM and predictably elements within the Zionist lobby complained that I was invited and allowed to breath on the air.

The ABC has rejected the complaint and it’s posted below. The fact that the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a supposedly serious organisation, thinks it’s appropriate to try and censor perspectives that challenge Israel and its policies indicates a profound arrogance and insecurity about its role in society and how it believes its key responsibility is dedication to the Israeli government. Media groups should be well aware of this and act accordingly:

A complaint to the ABC by The Executive Council of Australian Jewry following a radio interview with journalist Antony Loewenstein dealing with the activities of the late Ben Zygier has been dismissed by the national broadcaster.

In a statement released this week, the ECAJ said:

The ABC has dismissed a complaint made by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) about an interview on ABC Radio’s ‘Saturday AM’ program on 13 February 2013 conducted by presenter, Elizabeth Jackson, with commentator Antony Loewenstein.
The ECAJ complained that false claims were made about the supposed ‘dual loyalties’ of Jewish Australians, and that the interviewee making those claims was doing so without evidence, qualifications, expertise or representative status in any part of the Jewish community.

According to ECAJ Executive Director, Peter Wertheim, “During the interview, without evidence or substantiation of any kind, the entirely baseless suggestion was made that there is a relationship between ‘the Jewish establishment in Australia’ and ‘the Mossad, and indeed Israeli intelligence’ which facilitates and encourages Jews from a young age to join up and fight with the IDF and the Mossad.”

Wertheim was especially critical of the Saturday AM program. “It is supposed to be a fact-based news program, not a chat show with entire segments devoted merely to uncontested expressions of opinion. Where were the tough questions, or any questions, asking Loewenstein to provide evidence for his completely unfounded assertions? Isn’t that what fact based program interviewers are supposed to do? Isn’t it their role to elicit the factual basis of opinions expressed by their guests, if any exist?”

“The ABC’s answers to our complaints are either not responsive to the specific matters we raised, or evaded the issue, or were disingenuous”, Wertheim said. “The answers consist for the most part of simple denials that anything untoward was being implied, and irrelevant assertions that Loewenstein has a right to express his opinions”.
Wertheim does not believe there would be any point in the ECAJ pursuing an appeal to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, but noted that this would not be the end of the matter. “The ABC launched a baseless attack on Australian Jews, with insinuations of disloyalty, by interviewing someone who the ABC itself describes as a ‘provocateur’. The ABC has now demonstrated that the process whereby one section of the ABC investigates another does not work”, he said.

The ABC response to the complaint as reported in J-Wire…

Barack Obama is soon to land in Israel and only a fool believes the US President is doing anything other than appeasing the Zionist lobby, occupation backers, the arms industry and other cretins and fools. Gideon Levy in Haaretz:

Barack Obama has decided to punish the Israelis: He is talking to them as if they were ignoramuses. The U.S. president has also decided to punish himself: He is betraying his principles, those that have won him international acclaim and the Nobel Peace Prize.

There’s no other way to understand what he said in his interview with Channel 2 on the eve of his visit here. The flattery he heaped on Israel’s leader considerably exceeded diplomatic protocol and even phony American manners. His denial of his values deviated even from the opportunism one might expect from a politician. Obama said he wants to “connect to the Israeli people.” This he actually did well; he told Israelis what they wanted to hear.

But from Obama we could have expected a lot more. When Obama said he admires Israel’s “core values,” which values was he talking about? The dehumanization of the Palestinians? The attitude toward African migrants? The arrogance, racism and nationalism? Is this what he admires? Don’t separate buses for Palestinians remind him of something? Doesn’t two communities living on the same land, one with full rights and the other with no rights, “ring a bell,” as they say in America?

To admire “core values” while knowing we’re talking about one of the most racist countries there is, with a separation wall and apartheid-like policies, means betraying the core values of the American civil rights movement that made the Obama miracle possible. Too bad he can’t fulfill his fantasy of wearing a fake mustache and wandering around to have conversations with Israelis; he would hear how they talk about blacks like him. Too bad he can’t sit in a cafe and “just hang out,” as he’d like. He’d hear which “core values” really move Israelis.

Obama wants to lower expectations of his visit. Well, they can’t get any lower. During his first term they said we’d have to wait until his second. So now it’s here, and he says he’s only coming “to listen.” But his job isn’t to listen; everybody has listened far more than enough. Now it’s time for action, and it’s still being delayed.

Meanwhile back in reality, here’s a few travel tips from American-Arab comedian Amer Zahr:

Mr. President, I hear you are traveling to Israel next week.  As a concerned patriotic American citizen of Palestinian descent, I have some pointers for you.

Now, I assume you’ll be flying into Tel Aviv.  Usually, when non-Jews arrive there, especially if they are a little darker-skinned, they are asked to wait in a… let’s call it a “VIP Room.”  Incidentally, the room is quite nice. There’s a water cooler, comfortable chairs, and a soda machine.  It’s probably the only place in the world where you can be racially profiled and get an ice-cold Coca-Cola all at once.

To avoid the room, I would mention that you are the President of the United States.  It might help.

You may get strip-searched.  Saying you are an American doesn’t help much here.  I’ve tried.  I even sang the national anthem last time an Israeli soldier was looking down my pants.  Right after I said, “Oh say can you see,” he said, “Not much.”

To escape this embarrassment, I would mention that you are the President of the United States.  It might help.

In case they don’t already know, you might not want to tell Israeli security you are half-Muslim.  As a fellow half-Muslim, I can tell you they don’t really care about the percentage.  Any bit of Muslim freaks them out. And I’m not sure if you heard, but the fans of one of Israel’s soccer teams, Beitar Jerusalem, actually protested when the club signed two Muslim players.  When one of them scored in a game last week, hundreds of fans actually walked out of the stadium.  One of the fans later stated about the Muslim players, “It’s not racism. They just shouldn’t be here.” Hopefully, they don’t know your middle name is “Hussein.” Maybe they didn’t watch the inauguration.

In any case, I would mention that you are the President of the United States.  It might help.

This next one might be a little tough.  Maybe you didn’t hear, but lately there has been a little “African problem” in Israel.  Over the past several years, tens of thousands immigrants from Africa, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, have entered the “only democracy in the Middle East.”  Most of them are looking for work, and some are political refugees.  Israel has recently rounded up many of them for deportation.  Oh, and by the way, they don’t call them “refugees” or “migrants,” they call them “infiltrators.”  Israelis have held numerous demonstrations in Tel Aviv, where most of the migrants live, to demand an African exodus from Israel.

There were two examples in yesterday’s New South Wales parliament. Firstly, Labor Councillor Shaoquett Moselmane dared talk about the reality of Israeli crimes in Gaza and a host of other usually unutterable realities in polite company. There were then attempts to shut him down by his own party and the rapacious Zionist lobby. The usual suspects are scared that somebody may hear something contrary to a pro-apartheid and pro-occupation position. Cover your ears!

NSW Upper House Greens politician David Shoebridge gave the following powerful speech that challenged the wilful myopia expressed by nearly all politicians. A recent Zionist lobby trip took silly little politicians to Israel to get their fill of propaganda and falafel:

I speak to this motion and note at the outset that it is a very unbalanced one. Indeed, a member asked if The Greens took part in this study mission to Israel. As far as I am aware, no Greens member of Parliament went on this study mission. That was primarily because of the one-sided nature of the itinerary, which is reflected in the one-sided nature of this motion.

In a motion that purports to talk about building an understanding of the complex and various issues impacting on Israel and other jurisdictions within the Middle East, it is extraordinary that in the more than 100 words and five paragraphs of this motion not one word is mentioned about Palestine or the Palestinians. The human rights of the Palestinians are airbrushed out of the motion, just as they were airbrushed out of the itinerary of the study tour that travelled to Israel and some very small parts of the West Bank.

Having heard the contributions of members who went on the study tour and having read the motion, I can see that this is little more than a public relations exercise for the Israeli Government. Indeed, this public relations exercise has been run in part through the offices of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies which arranged the tour and, I understand, partly paid for the study trip to Israel.

For the record, I do not recall getting an invitation from the Jewish Board of Deputies for this visit. However, had I received one I would not have accepted the invitation to go on this study trip because of the extraordinarily one-sided itinerary provided to members.

If the Parliamentary Friends of Israel were interested in building an understanding of the complex issues in the Middle East, as they purport to be, their itinerary should have included a couple of other places to visit. First, the itinerary should have included visits outside the limited confines of Israel, Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

How could members of this Chamber who wanted to get a balanced understanding of the issues facing the Israelis, the Palestinians and the Middle East travel to that part of the world and not meet with any members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, or at least those members of the Palestinian Legislative Council not currently being held in Israeli jails, many of them without trial and without being charged with any criminal offence?

How could members go there and meet with only one of the legislative bodies, the Knesset, and ignore the Palestinian Legislative Council? How could members, who wanted to get a balanced understanding of the issues facing Israel, Palestine and the Middle East, go to the other side of the planet and fail to visit Gaza, the world’s largest outdoor prison?

How could members not go to see the way the Palestinians live under the illegal blockade or not speak to the local health workers about the conditions in Gaza, or the paramedics about how they respond to the impacts of aerial bombardments by the Israeli military?

If they had visited Gaza they would have been able to see the X-rays that the Gaza doctors show of children’s kidneys riddled with kidney stones because of the saline water they are required to drink. The Israeli wells on the edge of Gaza are stripping out the fresh water from the arterial basin and the arterial basin is filling up with saline water from the sea. That saline water fills the wells. Most of the water treatment plants have been destroyed by Israeli bombardments and almost every child in Gaza has kidneys riddled with kidney stones and ongoing health problems.

Next time members should go to Gaza, look at the children, look at the damage, look at the X-rays and get some balance in their visit.

If they had gone to Gaza surely they would then have gone to the West Bank and outside Bethlehem and Jerusalem and spoken to Palestinian villagers whose lives and livelihoods have been destroyed by the apartheid wall. Talk to the farmers whose olive groves have been cut off by the illegal apartheid wall, who cannot get to the fields that generations of their family had previously tended because of an illegal apartheid wall built by Israel through the middle of their homes, villages and farms.

Surely members could also have met with Israeli peace activists, such as Jeff Halper from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and spoken to Palestinians who have been illegally evicted from their homes and land to make way for internationally condemned settlements being built by the Israelis.

But, no. Members spoke to the Israeli settlers but they did not visit and speak to the people who have been evicted illegally for these internationally condemned, unlawful settlements that are now riddling the West Bank.

How could members not have travelled to Hebron and done the Breaking the Silence tour, where former Israeli soldiers would have told them about what goes on in the occupied territories, about the violence and the discrimination perpetrated by the Israeli military and the settler movement against the native Palestinian population?

Or were they Israeli voices that members wanted to edit out and not hear? The inconvenient truth.

How could members not visit those Palestinian refugee camps in neighbouring countries such as Lebanon, where Palestinian refugees from 1948, 1967 and beyond live in sub-standard Third World conditions and are denied their human right to return to their homes? Members did not speak to them, see their title deeds and see the keys they still hold for the homes that were taken from them in the illegal occupations and evictions that have been taking place for decades in that part of the world?

It is extraordinary to note that Labor members, one of whom is notionally from the Left, visited Israel and small parts of the West Bank but did not travel to Nablus and meet with any of the Palestinian trade unions. How could members have travelled over there and not spoken to the firefighters in the Nablus fire station who were locked into their compound by Israeli tanks and snipers and prevented from doing their job as firefighters? They were prevented from saving the lives and homes of their families and friends for days and days as homes burned; children and other people died while the Israeli military shelled and burned their city around them.

The motion is not balanced; the visit to Israel was not balanced. It was not about getting an understanding of the complex and various issues but, rather, about getting a narrow part of the Israeli understanding.

For members who went on such an unbalanced tour and failed to see the balanced truth, the oppression the Palestinian people face daily as a result of the illegal occupation of Israel, and to support this motion and preach to the rest of the Chamber about truth, understanding, peace and non-violence is extraordinary.

During the recent Prisoner X story about Israel’s covert and often illegal terrorism in the Middle East, I was interviewed by ABC Radio AM on the related issues.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a leading Zionist lobby group, sees its role as enforcing public debate over Israel/Palestine. They miserably fail at this, of course, but that won’t mean they won’t try. Really hard.

Their latest comedy routine involves sending a massive complaint, via its clearly exhausted head Peter Wertheim, to ABC about my appearance, accusing me of anti-Semitism and worse. It’s worth looking through their reasons for feeling hurt, upset, obsessed, damaged, punished and sore. What these pro-occupation “leaders” fail to understand, as public debate across the West is turning against apartheid Israel, is that their energy would be much better spent on actually addressing the myriad of issues in Palestine and Israel, like, um, an ever-expanding occupation, instead of trying to bully the public broadcaster. If nothing else, this plays into the worst stereotypes of under-handed Jewish behaviour. Another own goal; well done lobby.

The complaint:

Audience and Consumer Affairs
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

I write to express my concern about the segment on ABC Radio’s ‘Saturday AM’ program on 13 February 2013, comprising an interview by presenter,Elizabeth Jackson, of another journalist, Antony Loewenstein. A transcript of the interview is attached. An MP3 recording is accessible on the ABC website.
I consider that the segment involved gross breaches of the ABC’s Code of Practice 2011, which I will detail below.

The themes of the interview are encapsulated in a series of assertions in the introduction and in the interview itself. The principle assertions are itemized below. Our comments in response to these assertions appear in square brackets after each item.
1. “The most secretive workings of the Jewish state”. [Every State, including Israel, has “most secretive workings”. But to juxtapose the words “most secretive workings” with the word “Jewish”, instead of referring to “Israel” by name, appeals subliminally to notorious anti-Jewish stereotypes about the supposed power of Jews as a collective, and about Jews supposedly being engaged in a world conspiracy. Later in the interview other stereotypes are introduced impliedly accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations. These stereotypes are internationally recognized as among the hallmarks of anti-Jewish racism and prejudice – see Working Definition of Antisemitism as adopted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
(http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2011/working-definitionantisemitism) and the UK All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Antisemitism (http://www.antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/AllParty-Parliamentary-Inquiry-into-Antisemitism-REPORT.pdf) among others].

2. There are many perplexing elements to this story; one of them is the deafening silence.
Silence and gag orders from Israel, silence from the Australian Jewish community, and perhaps most perplexing of all, silence from Ben Zygier’s family. [The claim of “silence from the Australian Jewish community” was a blatant falsehood.
In point of fact, the previous day presenter, Fran Kelly, had conducted a detailed interview of the President of the Zionist Federation of Australia, Philip Chester, on ABC Radio National about the entire subject.1 Ms Jackson should have challenged Mr Loewenstein, with the fact of that interview, which also aired on the ABC. Further, silence from Ben Zygier’s relatives is a dignified and understandable response from a grieving family. To describe their silence as “perhaps most perplexing of all”, implies that the family’s response is in some sense aberrant and unnatural. In our view this was an unwarranted and disgraceful attempt to reflect adversely on a family in mourning.
3. Co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices, Antony Loewenstein, says he believes the Jewish community in Australia is embarrassed. [The reference to Independent Australian Jewish Voices implies that Loewenstein has some kind of constituency within an identifiable section of the Australian Jewish community. On its website, Independent Australian Jewish Voices admits2 that it is not an organization with membership, decision-making procedures and a political platform, and that the small number of people who signed their original statement in March 2007, “probably won’t agree on anything else besides that statement they signed”. It is therefore misleading to suggest that Lowenstein has any constituency at all. Nor does he have any academic or scholarly credentials whatsoever, or any particular real-life experience that might explain why the ABC seeks him out so frequently as a commentator about Israel. Indeed, Antony Loewenstein published a grossly antisemitic ‘poster’ on his website on 11 and 12 July 2010 (Attachment AF).

The ECAJ sent an informal complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission at 1:00pm on July 12 (Attachment AG). Later that day, Loewenstein removed the ‘poster’ from his website and published a retraction (Attachment AH).
4. The journalist says the case involving Ben Zygier should be a wake-up call to the community in Melbourne and Sydney to re-examine the way young Jewish youths (sic) are educated at religious schools in Australia.
[Without evidence or substantiation of any kind, or indeed any attempt to examine what “young Jewish youths” are in fact taught at Jewish schools in Australia, the assertion is made that there is some connection between the Ben Zygier case and what they are taught. Not only is this inaccurate, it feeds into the propagation of anti-Jewish stereotypes as referred to in our response to 1 above. I understand that Loewenstein never attended a Jewish school, “religious” or otherwise, and has no direct knowledge, let alone expertise, concerning their curricula or teachings.]
1 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/prisoner-x-philip-chester/4520472
2 http://iajv99.wordpress.com/about/

5. He says Australian Jews need to re-think the wisdom of a culture (sic) which encourages young men and women to join the Israeli military.
[Again, without evidence or substantiation of any kind, or indeed any attempt to examine the “culture” of the Australian Jewish community, the assertion is made that that culture encourages young men and women to join the Israeli military. Not only is this inaccurate, it feeds into the propagation of anti-Jewish stereotypes as referred to in our response to 1 above].
Then, in the body of the interview, Loewenstein makes the following assertions without contradiction or challenge from the presenter:

6. The Jewish community in Australia has taken the position of complete lockdown, where there has basically been virtually no comment about the details of the case. [See our response to 2 above].
7. There’s been virtually no comment about the relationship between the Jewish establishment in Australia and the Israeli government, and indeed Mossad, and indeed Israeli intelligence and the Israeli embassy.
[Yet again, without evidence or substantiation of any kind, the implication is made that there is a relationship between “the Jewish establishment in Australia” and “the Mossad, and indeed Israeli intelligence”. Not only is this inaccurate, it feeds into the propagation of anti-Jewish stereotypes as referred to in our response to 1 above].

8. The “Jewish communities in Sydney and Melbourne” facilitate and encourage Jews from a young age “to not just be involved with Israel, visit Israel, [but also] incredibly often fight with the IDF (Israeli Defence Force)… and indeed for that matter sometimes joining Mossad. [Yet again, without evidence or substantiation of any kind, the assertion is made that Jewish communal organisations in Australia facilitate and encourage Jews from a young age to join up and fight with the IDF and the Mossad. Not only is this inaccurate, it feeds into the propagation of anti-Jewish stereotypes as referred to in our response to 1 above].
At this point in the interview, the presenter, Elizabeth Jackson, chimes in, not to probe or challenge the interviewee, but to add her own unsubstantiated innuendo:
9. “perhaps it even happens in the synagogues, I don’t know – but how do they facilitate this kind of mentality”.
[Apparently not content with her interviewee’s denigration of the Jewish community, Ms Jackson now invites him to denigrate observance in synagogues generally of the Jewish faith. This is a particularly disturbing and disappointing feature of the interview.
Not only is the assertion inaccurate, it invites uninformed speculation by Loewenstein,who has more than once admitted that he does not attend synagogue, and it feeds into the propagation of anti-Jewish stereotypes as referred to in our response to 1 above].
Loewenstein then continues:
10. Many Jews are sent to Israel, often after school, for a year or six months or whatever. Not that many Jews are moving to Israel – some do. There’s definitely an encouragement to do so – in other words, to be the best kind of Jew you can be, so the thinking goes, some people argue the only way you can do that is to go to Israel and live there.
If you’re a young Jew, you’re likely to have to do military service, it’s compulsory in Israel for three years normally. And you potentially – although this is obviously far less  people – could be recruited by Mossad.
Now this sort of stuff I’m not saying is regularly discussed openly in synagogues in Sydney or Melbourne – it’s not.

[Nowhere does Loewenstein attempt to explain how programs in which young people travel to Israel and live there for a short time actually work. No-one is “sent” to Israel. Those who wish to visit are given assistance by Zionist organisations in Australia. Nor was Loewenstein asked whether he has any direct personal knowledge of these matters. Not only are his assertions unfounded, they feed into the propagation of anti-Jewish stereotypes as referred to in our response to 1 above. In point of fact these programs are primarily aimed at educating young Jews about their heritage and about contemporary Israel, and have never had anything to do with recruiting people for military or intelligence organisations].
I submit that the airing of the interview resulted in the following grave breaches of the ABC’s Code of Practice:
(a) Principle 2 – Accuracy. The ABC requires that reasonable efforts must be made to ensure accuracy in all fact-based content. The ABC accuracy standard applies to assertions of fact. The standard was violated – see items 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 above and our responses to them. Loewenstein could not reasonably have been relied on as a “source with relevant expertise” – see our response to item 3 above.
(b) Principle 4 – Impartiality and diversity of perspectives. The ABC has a statutory duty to ensure that the gathering and presentation of news and information is impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism. The ABC is guided by these hallmarks of impartiality:
• a balance that follows the weight of evidence;
• fair treatment;
Impartiality does not require that every perspective receives equal time, nor that every facet of every argument is presented.
In this case the standard was violated by the failure to ask the interviewee to refer to any supporting evidence or otherwise to substantiate his claims, or to probe the basis of his knowledge (if any) or to ask him any probing questions at all. Indeed the interviewer herself engaged in ill-informed anti-Jewish speculation. No attempt was made to put forward credible counter-propositions and seek the interviewee’s response. The
interviewee was not probed specifically about his (lack of) credentials, knowledge or experience to speak about Jewish schools. Nor did the interviewer put to the interviewee information that was already in the public domain that tended to contradict his views. For example, the interviewee was not asked to explain how he reconciled his views with the publicly-reported fact that Ben Zygier attended a non-Jewish school,
Wesley College, for all but the last 3 or 4 years of his school life, and only then attended a Jewish school. Nor was it put to the interviewee that Ben Zygier immigrated to Israeland in that respect is a rare exception amongst graduates of Jewish schools.

Standard 4.5 was breached not merely because the interviewee’s perspective was favoured over alternative perspectives but because alternative perspectives were omitted altogether. For example, the alternative perspectives put forward by Philip Chester in his interview with Fran Kelly the day before, were not put to the interviewee.
(c) Principle 7 – Harm and offence – a public broadcaster should never gratuitously harm or offend and accordingly any content which is likely to harm or offend must have a clear editorial purpose.

Standard 7.1 requires that content that is likely to cause harm or offence must be justified by the editorial context. This standard was breached by the gratuitous, negative reflection on Ben Zygier’s family for choosing to maintain their silence to the media.
Standard 7.7 requires avoidance of the unjustified use of stereotypes or discriminatory content that could reasonably be interpreted as condoning or encouraging prejudice. This standard was breached several times – see our response to items 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

The ongoing global interest in the Prisoner X case has led many media outlets in Australia and Israel to interview me about the story, not least because none of the Zionist organisations are saying a word.

Yesterday I was interviewed by Israel’s Channel 10 News:

And in Hebrew is a longer interview in Ynet.

I was interviewed this morning by ABC Radio’s World Today:

ELEANOR HALL: Now to the latest from Israel on prisoner X.

The Israeli parliament is planning to carry out what it calls an “intensive” inquiry into the death of the Australian-Israeli who was found dead in a secret prison near Tel Aviv in 2010.

The Israeli authorities have confirmed that 34-year-old Ben Zygier was prisoner X but it is still only speculation that he was also a spy for Mossad.

Lindy Kerin has our report.

LINDY KERIN: A week after the story broke on the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent program, the mystery surrounding the case of Ben Zygier continues.

The 34-year-old was found hanged in a specially designed, suicide proof cell. After his death, Israel imposed a total media ban on the case but was forced to ease the restrictions after the story gained international headlines.

Today a statement by the Israel parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee said:

ISRAELI PARLIAMENT’S STATEMENT (voiceover): We’ve decided to conduct an intensive examination of all aspects of the incident involving the prisoner found dead in his prison cell in December 2010.

LINDY KERIN: News of the parliamentary inquiry follows calls by the prime minister for restraint from those seeking answers over the case of prisoner X

Benjamin Netanyahu has strongly back the Israeli security forces and has warned that shining too much light on intelligence activities could jeopardise national security.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU (translation): I completely trust the security forces of the state of Israel. They are acting with endless devotion and commitment in order to enable us to live in this country. I also completely trust the law authorities in the state of Israel.

LINDY KERIN: As well as the Israeli parliament investigation, Australia will also prepare a report on the Ben Zygier case.

Journalist and Co. founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices, Antony Loewenstein, is a well known critic of the Israeli government. He’s worried the inquiry will whitewash the case.

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: History shows unfortunately that Israel is an incredibly opaque society when it comes to these kind of investigations, the fact that the government itself in other words is investigating itself is highly problematic for self evident reason, and in fact it’s a society in Israel over many, many years, over many, many cases, not least in relation to Palestinians who are routinely held in jail and tortured and many other horrible crimes that the Israeli state often refuses to be transparent about that.

So why this would be any different – the only way this could be different is if there is serious pressure from outside forces and there’s not much indication that the Australian Government’s going to put much if any pressure on the Israeli government to do so because of our unhealthily close relationship with the Jewish state.

LINDY KERIN: The World Today has contacted many organisations for comment including the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, The New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, and the Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, but nobody wanted to talk about the case.

The president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, Nina Bassat, responded to our request saying “The family of Ben Zygier is grieving and have clearly expressed their desire to do so in private. I intend to respect their feelings and do not propose to add to their pain by making any comment.”

LINDY KERIN: Antony Loewenstein says he’s not surprised the community is reluctant to talk.

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: The Jewish community and the establishment and the Zionist lobby likes to be in lock-step with the Israeli government. In other words the Israeli lobby in Australia is not an independent bodies, they’re simply a propaganda for the Jewish state.

So when a case like this happens, we don’t know all the facts, no-one knows all the facts, and rather than coming out and saying something which they fear will embarrass Israel, they’d rather say nothing at all.

But of course, the effect of that is that it shows to the wider community, who is not Jewish, obviously the vast majority of the Australian population, the Jewish establishment is incapable or unwilling of actually questioning its master so to speak, which is Tel Aviv and the government in Israel.

And I think that’s very unhealthy for the Jewish community and it’s a shame and quite revealing that very, very few, in fact, if any members, of the establishment in the Jewish community are willing to say anything of note apart from platitudes.

ELEANOR HALL: That’s Antony Loewenstein from the Independent Australian Jewish Voices group, speaking to Lindy Kerin.

My following investigation appears in New Matilda:

The death of Ben Zygier has exposed Israel’s repressive censorship over national security – and shown how closely Australia works with Israel on military intelligence, writes Antony Loewenstein

The case of Australian and Israeli citizen Ben Zygier and his alleged suicide in an Israeli jail in December 2010 provides an instructive window into the secretive relationship between Canberra and Tel Aviv as well as the dynamics between the Zionist state and friendly Western nations. The death of the former IDF soldier and Mossad agent has triggered a global media storm after last week’s ABC TV’s Foreign Correspondent story revealed the identity of Prisoner X.

But what makes this international intrigue all the more fascinating is not what most of the commentary is obsessing over — the details of Zygier’s life and how he ended up in a high security prison — but the ways in which young Jews are groomed by an Israeli intelligence service to commit acts of terrorism and subterfuge across the world under the guise of protecting national security. It is done with the consent of Western governments and intelligence services, including Australia’s.

New Matilda spoke to a former senior Australian ambassador who says that ASIO and ASIS work hand in glove with the Israeli government, including the assistance of grooming potential spies on Australian soil at universities such as Monash in Melbourne and military academies like Duntroon. Australia long ago outsourced much of its military and intelligence, as well as foreign affairs sovereignty, to Israel and America. “There’s little we [Australia] would not do to please them”, my source says.

The Zygier case has forced Israel’s repressive censorship over national security laws to weaken — it was amusing witnessing Israeli journalists tweeting information about Prisoner X during the broadcast of Foreign Correspondent despite there then being an Israeli gag order on the case — so it’s unsurprising that Israel is so keen to keep details of the story secret. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he doesn’t believe there should be any sunlight on the actions of his country’s intelligence services in the wake of the Zygier case getting wide coverage.

After all, Zygier was a Mossad agent who may well have been involved, directly or indirectly, in the murder of a Hamas operative, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, in Dubai, the murder of Iranian nuclear scientists in Iran or the recruitment of members of the Sunni terrorist organisation Jundallah, infamous for attacks inside Iran. All these acts are breaches of international law and none are condemned by the Zionist lobby or leading politicians. What the Jewish communityworries about is the wider society regarding Jews as disloyal to Australia.

New Matilda spoke to a senior Israeli defence correspondent who said that he knew about the identity of Ben Zygier in 2010 at the time of his death but was unable to report it because of the Israeli gag order. He said he thought the Australian and Israeli citizen wasn’t a bad man but simply found himself in above his head. He faulted Israel trying to keep the story secret for so long and believed that the virtual silence of the Australian Jewish community was due to embarrassment and ignorance of the case. Their response may have been co-ordinated with the Israeli embassy. They believed, he argued, that by speaking out they may shine an unwelcome light on Israel, something that goes against their DNA.

Although Israel denies that it tortured Zygier while in custody, it’s clear that international norms were breached during his incarceration due to a lack of legal representation and conditions inside jail. News Limited’s Andrew Bolt argues that critics of Israel always look for the worst in the Zionist state, but Israel is doing a fine job on its own. It’s possible, according to an Israeli journalist, that Australia put Zygier’s life at risk by leaking information about his work with Mossad to the media.

The ignorance about this case expressed by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Bob Carr stretches credibility because Israeli and Australian intelligence agencies likelyknew all about the actions of Zygier before his death. Furthermore, Australia offered a muted response to the illegal Israeli use of forged passports in 2010 for the purpose of murdering Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh; Israel barely received a rap on the knuckles. Deputy Opposition foreign affairs spokesperson Julie Bishop simply said that Australia also forged passports so Israel was not alone in acting illegally.

It is worth considering the reaction of New Zealand to a similar passport forging incident back in 2004, which led to diplomatic sanctions against Israel. New Zealand’s then Foreign Minister Phil Goff said last week that he was “contacted by the Israeli government at the time asking whether we could reach an arrangement over it”. He wouldn’t budge.

“No go. These people have committed criminal offences in our country and they’ll be treated just like anybody else who commits a criminal offence and that we did not appreciate another country seeking passports to misuse for purposes that frankly are unacceptable which is the assassination of people for their own political purposes.” It is unimaginable that any senior politician in Australia would speak like Goff: “We’re not prepared to see friendly countries act in that sort of criminal way against us.”

The details around Zygier’s life and death remains murky. New Matilda has been told, by somebody who knows the Zygier family well, that two Mossad agents with an Australian connection spoke at his funeral in Melbourne and they said how sad it was that Zygier had “lost his spirit” towards the end of his life. No other information about the funeral is forthcoming.

The complicity of silence around Zygier’s actions within the Zionist establishment — witness the “see no evil, hear no evil” stonewalling by Philip Chester, President of the Zionist Council of Australia, on ABC Radio National Breakfast last Friday — is symptomatic of a mainstream Australian, Jewish community that encourages and facilitates young Jews to visit Israel andidealise its identity. Palestinians are largely absent in this worldview. The occupation is virtually non-existent. Iran, Hamas and Hizbollah are the new Nazis. Building a ghettoised, Zionist state, after centuries of Jews often living in isolation across the world, is an irony lost on far too many people.

What the Zionist lobby and its political and media courtiers don’t want to discuss is their complicity in this affair. They all believe that young Jews have the right to move, fight or spy for Israel, including during wars against Lebanon and Gaza, while Muslims who want to join their brethren in Syria, Lebanon or Palestine are labelled terrorists for doing the same thing.

From a young age, the Zionist schooling system and its associated entities indoctrinate Jews to slavishly back Israel and demonise Arabs. Blindly supporting Israel may seem like a good idea to them but in reality has created a monster from which the insecure Jewish community is unlikely to recover any time soon; growing numbers of young Jews are disillusioned with an occupying Israel and no longer tolerate an Israel lobby that acts as propagandists for Zionism. The death or murder of Ben Zygier should be a wake-up call to Australian Jewry that even its own can be treated shabbily by Israel.

Throughout this whole scandal, the reality of illegally imprisoned Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, countless people without a recognisable face in the international media, is ignored. Israeli state-sanctioned racism against Palestinians is conveniently forgotten when talking about a fresh-faced man from an establishment, Zionist home in Melbourne.

After yet another Zionist brutality emerges in the press, the public image of Israel will take another necessary hit. Once the Zygier story disappears from the headlines, the occupation of Palestinian land will continue and deepen. The Oscar-nominated documentary, The Gatekeepers, interviews six former Shin Bet heads, Israel’s internal security agency, about their work and views on Israel’s future. They’re pessimistic and argue from deep knowledge that an Israeli police state exists in the West Bank.

No amount of covert missions from the likes of Ben Zygier will hide this damning reality.