Tag Archive for 'Kevin Rudd'

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

Published on 20 March 2010 in Israel. 2 Comments 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.

The Israel lobby strikes back

Published on 18 March 2010 in General. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Speaking of “journalists” who love Israel like an old wine; juicy if you know where to lick but corrupt to the core. Over to you, Murdoch columnist Greg Sheridan:

The Australia-Israel relationship, normally a byword for geostrategic stability and enduring human warmth, has had some stormy passages lately.

The use of Australian passports by the agents, presumably from Mossad, who assassinated a Hamas terrorist in Dubai led to unusually strong criticism of Israel from Kevin Rudd and Stephen Smith. Australia changed its vote from oppose to abstain at the UN on a resolution requiring Israel and Hamas to investigate alleged war crimes as demanded in the widely discredited Goldstone report. This was a clear if unstated punishment of Israel for the passports breach.

Then there were needlessly energetic comments by Foreign Minister Smith condemning Israel over the recent announcement of 1600 new housing units to be built in East Jerusalem, on which more later.

This makes it all the more remarkable, and reassuring, that Smith yesterday hosted a bipartisan ceremony to accept a report – prepared by the Australia Israel Leadership Forum, founded by Melbourne businessman Albert Dadon – with recommendations for enhancing the Australia-Israel relationship.

The forum, in which I have participated, brings together a range of Israelis and Australians for annual strategic dialogue in the broadest sense. The Australian delegation in its two meetings has been led by Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote a letter endorsing the work of the forum and saying he will consider its recommendations.

The report makes four important suggestions.

The first is that Australian military staff colleges should host Israeli officers. This is a brilliant idea. Our staff colleges routinely host Arab officers and this is all to the good. We deploy a lot of Australian forces in and around the Middle East and, as a result, we have developed effective working relations with a number of Arab militaries. But we are a strategic and political ally of Israel. The absence of Israelis from these courses is a serious gap and has a small but ongoing effect on our military culture.

Arab and Israeli officers routinely attend US staff colleges together. It’s good for both of them. They have to put up with each other if they want the benefit of American military staff colleges. It helps dialogue all around and it gives expression to the true nature of the US-Israel relationship. There is absolutely no reason Australia should not do this.

I would add a recommendation the report leaves out. Australia should have an annual or biennial full strategic dialogue with Israel. We do have very high level intelligence exchanges but, given the depth of our investment in the Middle East, we should also exchange deep and wide strategic views. We could learn something, and perhaps we could teach something. Our military work in Afghanistan is overwhelmingly among civilian populations, just as is most of Israel’s military involvement. Operationally, ethically, in every way we have things to talk about.

Recommendation No 2 is for a free trade agreement. This is also a brilliant idea. Australian trade with Israel is small, just about $1 billion a year. But Israel is a world leader in innovation and commercialisation. We could and should do much more together.

Third, Israel’s experience with improving Bedouin health and Australia’s struggle to do the same with Aboriginal health ought to be the basis for co-operation, comparison and mutual teaching.

Finally, the report recommends auditing and giving life to the plethora of bilateral agreements that have become moribund through the years. This is a practical and very useful document.

Smith reiterated at its launch that despite recent controversies there has been no change in Australia’s deep friendship with and commitment to Israel.

Smith did the right thing by accepting the report, committing the government to considering it seriously and reiterating Australia’s support for Israel.

And Opposition Deputy Leader Julie Bishop supported him on behalf of the Coalition.

Overall, the Rudd government displays only marginally less solidarity with Israel than the Howard government did. It has changed a couple of Australian votes at the UN, but not many. No one seriously doubts that this is an attempt, almost certainly forlorn, to curry favour with the Arab League in our quixotic and pointless quest for a non-permanent UN Security Council seat. This worthless bid is distorting our foreign policy, but so far mainly at the margins.

Similar considerations probably animate Smith’s overreaction to the 1600 Israeli apartments to be built, in three years, in East Jerusalem. This is in some eerie ways a minor imitation of the Obama administration’s gross overreaction. Whereas the Rudd government is courting votes for a tawdry UN election, Barack Obama plainly sees the quest to redefine the US relationship with the Muslim world as central to his historic mission, and part of this involves dumping on the Israelis.

Thus the Palestinian Authority for 12 months refused to negotiate with Israel; that was fine. It then named a square after a female suicide bomber who killed 37 civilians, including 13 children. No hint of a US rebuke there. But Israel announcing the apartments is apparently the end of Middle East peace as we know it.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the Israeli government was extremely stupid to announce the apartments while US Vice-President Joe Biden was visiting Israel. But Netanyahu’s temporary freeze on building in the West Bank never included East Jerusalem. There are Jewish parts of East Jerusalem that every serious player knows will stay with Israel in any peace deal. They were staying with Israel under the Bill Clinton mandated offer to the Palestinians in 2000, and under the even more generous plan put by Ehud Olmert in 2008.

In other words, as usual, Israel got the public relations and political management wrong but the substance right. The Obama administration was notably unmoved by rape and murder as a political tactic in Iran; is offering endless concessions to Syria, which treats Washington with studied contempt; and will never criticise the Palestinian Authority. It is developing a very bad tendency to constantly flatter its enemies in the fantastical hope of engaging and converting them, while abusing its friends, to show its even-handedness.

Canberra has no need to go down that same road.

This useful report helps it choose a better road instead.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

Australia’s Israel lobby seem lost for words over Dubai murder

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

It’s about time Australia’s Zionist lobby was seriously questioned over its inability to find fault with the Israeli policy of state-sanctioned murder (via the Australian):

Dual Israeli nationals will be banned from entering Dubai in a sanction that police say will be enforced by recognising “physical features and the way they speak”.

The announcement, by Dubai police chief Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, is the first reprisal for Israel’s suspected role in the murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai and could affect dual Australian-Israeli citizens using Dubai as a stopover.

The sanction will be difficult to police given that Israelis enter the United Arab Emirates on second passports because the UAE does not have diplomatic ties with Israel. The Emirates will “deny entry to anyone suspected of having Israeli citizenship”, General Tamim said, adding that police would “develop skills” to recognise Israelis by “physical features and the way they speak”.

The head of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Robert Goot, said last night he would not comment on General Tamim’s declaration.

Meanwhile, the head of the Palestinian delegation in Canberra, Izzat Abdulhadi, said yesterday Jewish leaders in Australia had to decide whether their loyalties lay with Australia or Israel.

His call came as the Zionist Federation of Australia released a statement in which it again declined to criticise Israel’s suspected role in the faking of three Australian passports to support the suspected Mossad assassination.

“The ZFA notes that Israel has not accepted responsibility for, or made any comment in relation to, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s death or the alleged misuse of passports and it believes it is not appropriate for speculation to prevail or unsubstantiated conclusions to be drawn in the absence of hard evidence,” ZFA president Philip Chester said.

The row has caused a diplomatic rift, with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith warning that if Israel is found to have sponsored or condoned the misuse of Australian passports, it would not

be seen as the act of a friend.

Mr Abdulhadi, the most senior Palestinian representative in Australia, said yesterday the reluctance of Jewish leaders to criticise the Israeli government meant they were failing to stand up for Jewish Australian citizens.

“I think the Jewish community (leaders) should be more constructive and behave as Australians and protect the integrity of Australian citizens,” he said in an interview with The Australian.

“They should support the Australian government and condemn publicly Israel’s abuse of their own Australian citizens.”

Mr Chester said he understood why the Australian government wanted to investigate any alleged misuse of its passports. “The ZFA acknowledges that it is appropriate for the Australian government and its security agencies to investigate any credible allegations of misuse or theft of Australian passports,” he said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade yesterday rejected claims made by Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki that Australia and other Western nations had questions to answer about their role in the killing of Mabhouh because their passports had been used.

A DFAT spokesperson said yesterday: “State-sanctioned assassinations are not a policy of the Australian government.”

Prominent Australian Jews, including Peter Singer, reject the Israeli right of return

Published on 3 March 2010 in Israel. 20 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

MEDIA RELEASE 3 MARCH, 2010

Today is the national launch of a prominent new Australian initiative that rejects Israel’s automatic right of return for Jews across the world.

Following a recent similar project in the US, 35 distinguished Australian Jews have signed a petition that indicates growing dissent from Zionist policies and dispossession of Palestinian land.

The ongoing occupation of Palestine, the siege on Gaza, the botched Mossad hit in Dubai and violence against Palestinians is encouraging a sea-change in global Jewish opinion towards the state of Israel.

Some of the key signatories include world-renowned ethicist Peter Singer, actor Miriam Margolyes, legendary feminist campaigner Eva Cox, La Trobe University’s Dennis Altman, Monash University’s Andrew Benjamin, Sydney University’s David Goodman and John Docker, legal scholar GJ Lindell, best-selling author and journalist Antony Loewenstein, writers Susan Varga and Sara Dowse, ANU’s Ned Curthoys and many others.

This statement is a direct challenge to the Rudd government’s closeness to Israel and plea for a more balanced approach to the Middle East question.

***

Petition Against the Right of Return to Israel on Behalf of Australian Jews

March 2010

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 seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land—a right recognized 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.

Signed:

Professor Peter Singer – Princeton University
Miriam Margolyes (OBE) – renowned actor
Eva Cox (AO) – National Chair of the Women’s Electoral Lobby.
Professor Dennis Altman – Professor of Politics, La Trobe University
Professor Andrew Benjamin – Monash University
Sara Dowse – writer
GJ Lindell – Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Adelaide
Susan Varga – writer
Antony Loewenstein – writer, journalist, author of My Israel Question
Professor David SG Goodman – Professor of Chinese Politics, University of Sydney
Professor John Docker – Sydney University
Jean McClean – advisor to Vice-Chancellor at Victoria University on East-Timor
Dr Peter Slezak – University of New South Wales
Dr Tony Balint – Blue Horizon Clinic
Dr Ron Witton – University of Wollongong
Dr Ned Curthoys – Australian National University
Dr Rick Kuhn – Australian National University
Dr. Tamas Pataki
Russell Bancroft – Manager Industrial Relations, Government Branch
Alice Beauchamp
Toni Beauchamp
Wendy Crew
Bronwyn Dahlstrom
Nicole Erlich – PhD candidate, University of Queensland
Marshall Harris
David Hermolin
Sylvie Leber
Jeffrey Loewenstein
Stefan Moore
Martin Munz
Vivienne Porzsolt
Joe Rich
Margot Salom
Rene Tsukasov
Nic Witton

How many Australians regards Israel as a problem child?

Published on 2 March 2010 in Israel. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

The following letters appear in today’s Sydney Morning Herald:

Amin Saikal is wrong to call the hit on Mahmoud al-Mabhouh terrorism (”It is time for Israel’s friends to condemn its acts of terrorism”, March 1). This man was an armed combatant, whose chief aim was to destroy Israel and kill as many Israelis as possible. He was neither an innocent nor a civilian and it is the height of hypocrisy for Israel bashers to insist Israel does nothing while its enemies go out of their way to destroy it. If you fire rockets and missiles at someone with the intention of killing, you cannot complain if someone fires back.

Ian Fraser Cherrybrook

Amin Saikal can see no difference between the ‘’state terrorism” of Israel and that of its enemies. What is undeniably different is that the Israelis at least target the people they are trying to kill. They have not started randomly slaughtering anyone who happens to be around when a bomb goes off. From Beirut to Bali, Islamic terrorists routinely murder thousands of innocents, indifferent to the suffering and misery they create.

The Israelis may be guilty of skulduggery and murder, but it cannot be compared with what terrorists are doing on a daily basis across half the world. We do not have to go through tiresome procedures at airports because of Israeli government practices.

The equivalence Professor Saikal sees between the activities of Israel and Islamic terrorism is a delusion.

Tony Letford Ashfield

Amin Saikal argues that all extra-judicial killings made by agents of a state are a form of state-sponsored terrorism. Under this logic, the policeman shooting the fleeing criminal is guilty of terrorism, as is the soldier in the field when he kills an enemy combatant, as neither has received judicial sanction for their actions.

The argument to be had is one of justification – was the state justified in killing the person in question? In this case the undisputed evidence is that Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was in Dubai seeking to buy weapons for use against Israel. Under international law Israel is justified in defending itself from this threat.

Saikal fails to recognise that in this century the concept of an enemy as a soldier in uniform is increasingly being blurred by those who would fight from beneath the cover of civilian clothes. It is folly to suggest a state has no right to defend itself against an enemy clad in a plaid shirt and jeans, just as it is folly to suggest it cannot defend itself against a man in combat fatigues.

Jack Pinczewski Ainslie (ACT)

If an Israeli agent found himself in the same room as Osama bin Laden and asked his superior for permission to shoot him, I can fully imagine him being told, ”Better not, we don’t want any angry letters to the editor.”

Daniel Lewis Rushcutters Bay

David Ashton (Letters, March 1) asks what is to be done when ”fighting enemies that operate covertly and without rules”. I had to read his letter twice before deciding to which side he was referring.

Mary Purnell Revesby

Can someone please check whether ASIO’s spies travel using false passports? If not, we need an urgent inquiry.

David Ziegler Dover Heights

You quote the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, as saying: ”The Australian government always considers UN resolutions on a case-by-case basis and on their merits” (”Australia abandons Israel in UN vote”, March 1).

It would be fascinating to hear the Foreign Affairs Department’s reason for Australia’s voting against a UN resolution in July 2004, which called on Israel to comply with an International Court of Justice advisory opinion relating to aspects of the West Bank separation barrier that the court considered illegal.

The resolution was carried by 150 to six. The six against were Israel, the US, Australia and three US client states (Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau). The only Western country to abstain was Canada. Given that Australia purports to support human rights and the rule of law, I wonder what particular problems we perceived with this resolution.

Roger Mayhew Surfside

And letters in the Melbourne Age:

IMAGINE the outcry if, in a clandestine operation, Australian agents using forged passports of another country murdered Osama bin Laden.Add New Post ‹ Antony Loewenstein — WordPress

Henry Herzog, St Kilda East

IN THE fight against international terrorism it appears the rules only allow the terrorists to travel the world with false passports.

Michael Burd, Toorak

PERHAPS the time has come to do away with dual-nationality passports.

Brian Haill, Frankston

And a letter in the Australian:

WHETHER or not Israel played any part in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh may never really be known.

What is known is that this individual was responsible for the murders of hundreds of Israelis on behalf of Hamas. Why is it then that the Australian media persists in referring to him as a “militant”? I do not recall the same term used for those individuals who murdered so many Australians in the Bali bombings. They were correctly referred to as terrorists.

The term “militant” implies a moral justification for the individual’s actions. Why is the killing of innocent Israeli civilians morally justifiable whereas the killing of innocent Australians is not? Let’s call a spade a spade and call al-Mabhouh and others like him “terrorists”.

N. Balkin, Rose Bay, NSW

Are Australian police on the case to find Israeli friendship or truth?

Published on 2 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

On the surface, Australia appears to be investigating how our passports were used in the murder of a Hamas operative in Dubai but will any of this really affect Israeli/Australian relations in the long run?

The Australian Federal Police will send a team of agents to Israel this week to investigate how forged Australian passports were used in the assassination of a Hamas leader.

Dubai police believe Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in his hotel room in the emirate on January 19 by a team of assassins sent by Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad.

They have released photographs of 26 people they believe were involved in the killing, three of whom were carrying forged Australian passports bearing the names of three dual Australian-Israeli citizens.

The three, Adam Korman, Joshua Bruce and Nicole McCabe, are all living in Israel and have said they have no idea how their passports were forged.

Dubai police have said that 12 British passports, six Irish, four French and one German were also used in the assassination. Most of the passports carried the names of real people who were also dual Israeli citizens.

Israel told the Australian government last night that it would allow the federal police into the country to the question the three Australians.

The Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, summoned Israel’s ambassador, Yuval Rotem, for questioning on Sunday over the misuse of the passports.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has said he was not satisfied with the explanation given by Mr Rotem.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that at least two of the 26 suspected members of the team that tracked and killed Mabhouh had travelled to the US shortly afterwards.

Records show one of the suspects entered the US on January 21 using an Irish passport and another arrived in the US on February 14 using a British passport.

Investigators are uncertain whether the two are still in the US, but believe they may have already left using different passports to the ones they used to enter the country.

Last night the Dubai police chief, Dahi Khalfan, said he was sure that all the suspects in the assassination were now in Israel, where they will be able to avoid arrest.

“If they stay in Israel, they won’t be arrested, but eventually if they leave they will be arrested,” he said.

Time to cool dealings with Israel, says leading Aussie Palestinian group

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

The following statement is released today by Australians for Palestine:

Secrets and lies between friends over Mossad murder

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

My following article is published today on ABC Unleashed/The Drum:

Israel is a protected species in the international arena. Many Western states, including Australia, have long tolerated behaviour by the Jewish state that is condemned if committed by any other democracy.

This reality makes the current scandal over the alleged Mossad hit last month in Dubai of a senior Hamas operative, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, all the more fascinating. The Palestinian militant may be dead but Israel’s reputation and credibility have taken a severe beating. The Israeli press are reporting that up to a third of a key Mossad hit squad may have been compromised.

Australia has a long history of bi-partisan support for the Jewish state but I can’t recall another time when the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have expressed such public outrage over Israel’s apparent use of Australian passports to cover their tracks in the Dubai murder. This is despite a Jerusalem Post columnist insisting that, “it behoves Western democracies not to lose sight of the fact there are instances in which ends do justify means”.

In this case, Australia apparently does not agree. Smith said he told Israel’s Australian ambassador, Yuval Rotem, that, “if the abuse of Australian passports was in any way sponsored or condoned by Israeli officials, then Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend.” Rudd was equally indignant though refused to specify what action might be taken if Israel did not co-operate. Senior ministers in both the ALP and Liberal party were equally vague on ABC’s Lateline on Friday.

Perhaps an early indication of Canberra’s anger was seen in a vote in the UN last week that saw Australia abstain from backing Israel against the serious allegations contained in the Goldstone Report related to allegations of war crimes in Gaza. This is a change from months of unqualified backing for Israel’s onslaught against Gaza in late 2008/early 2009.

The headline of an article by Sydney Morning Herald journalist Peter Hartcher summed up the mood: “Betrayed PM should not be taken for granted by Israel”. The Age’s Diplomatic Editor Daniel Flitton argued that, “a long friendship is on the line”.

Not so fast. Canberra is apparently upset that Israel has abused its deep friendship. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government probably presumed that a strong ally such as Australia would be unfazed by the abuse of its passport system or more likely hoped it would never become public. An Israeli official, anonymously of course, told the conservative Washington Times that the revelation of Mossad’s behaviour in Dubai would not affect intelligence sharing between Israel and the West.

But a former Australian Middle East ambassador, Ross Burns, is pleasantly surprised by the Rudd government’s strong line. It is time, he writes, that Australia matures and gets past its “smitten” love affair with the Jewish state.

It is possible that Australia will briefly downgrade its relationship with Mossad, as Canada did after the botched assassination attempt in 1997 of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal using fake Canadian passports, but backing Israel for Australia is too central to its complicity with the US alliance to seriously question or radically change.

A better example may be New Zealand in 2004, when then Prime Minister Helen Clark discovered Israeli agents trying to steal the country’s passports and suspended diplomatic relations until an apology was forthcoming.

Countless reports have emerged over the years of Israeli allegedly using Australian passports as cover for covert activities but successive Australian governments have never fully pursued the leads. The public should ask why.

The Australia/Israel relationship is not based on shared values, as constantly stated by the elites in both countries. Instead, Canberra’s usual blind backing of Israeli actions is directly related to the relationship with Washington. If US President Barack Obama suddenly cut all aid to the Jewish state due to its intransigence, rest assured Australia would follow. Our foreign policy in the Middle East is not independent.

But there is no doubt that Kevin Rudd, like most Prime Ministers before him, view Israel as a unique state deserving special privileges. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser said on the weekend that Rudd must take a much harder line on Netanyahu.

The Holocaust could no longer be used to justify acts of terrorism in the name of supposed security, he argued: “That happened 65-66 years ago and it cannot be used any longer to prevent proper discussion of Israel’s policies when those policies are counter-productive to world peace. To suggest that those who are critical are anti-Semitic – I reject that utterly.”

Others, such as The Australian’s Greg Sheridan, applauded the murder of the Hamas leader but asked Israel to be more careful next time. In other words, don’t get caught with blood on your hands.

Outright condemnation of Israeli actions has risen in the mainstream press. Amin Saikal in the Sydney Morning Herald accused Israel of committing state terrorism and The Age claimed Israel had “lost friends” over the scandal.

Extra-judicial killings are a central feature of the “war on terror” and Israel is only one of its supporters. The Bush administration (along with the Obama White House) strongly backed the concept of assassinating individuals deemed to be “terrorists” in countries such as Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald articulates the largely hidden program:

“Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose ‘a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests.’ They’re entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations.”

A robust democracy would not allow the executive to engage in wanton killing in the name of eliminating “terrorists” but little has been discussed in Australia that acknowledges the fundamental problems with this post 9/11 reality (despite the occasional exception).

Israel’s actions over the Hamas murder are deplorable and must be fully investigated (and Washington pressured to join the hunt for clues). The image of Israel in the wider Australian society has inevitably taken a welcome hit but it remains highly unlikely that the political and media elites will implement the obvious implications of the latest affair; Israeli behaviour in the Middle East and the occupied territories are not the sign of a responsible or democratic nation.

Australia/Israel has a problem in loving each other through the night?

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

We can always rely on Zionist spokespeople defending Israel no matter what the country does (nuking Gaza? Well, there were terrorists there!)

This is about as convincing as an Israeli Mossad agent dressed as a tennis player (and ignores the grave damage done to Israel’s image in the Australian community):

A Federal Labor MP and spokesman for the Jewish community has dismissed concerns that Australia and Israel face a major rift over the fake passport affair.

Israel’s secret service, Mossad, has been widely blamed for the death of a Hamas leader in his Dubai hotel room in January.

The Federal Government has reacted angrily to the news three stolen Australian passports were used in the operation.

But the MP for Melbourne Ports, Michael Danby says the fact Australia has abstained on a UN vote supporting Israel, does not mean the two countries have fallen out.

“I think this is a vote at the United Nations General Assembly, which is really not that important,” he told ABC Radio’s Jon Faine.

“I think this is a little blip on the horizon. The friendship between the two countries goes back too long and is too deep and I think everything will come back into alignment over the next few weeks.”

Of course, Danby is the man Israel can always rely on to defend her interests. He’s a good boy like that.

Australians discuss how Israel uses/abuses the Holocaust

Published on 1 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

The following letters appear in today’s Australian newspaper:

IT was shocking to read that Malcolm Fraser accused Israel of using the Holocaust to justify state-sanctioned murder (“Holocaust no excuse for murder: Fraser”, 27-28/2) .

No, it is not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel, but to suggest that the alleged killers of Hamas militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh are hiding behind the Holocaust does look awfully like an anti-Semitic slur. The suggestion, which seems calculated to incite contempt, is as preposterous as it is gratuitous. No doubt al-Mabhouh was assassinated for the same reason that the US has been using drones to kill al-Qa’ida leaders in Pakistan, for al-Mabhouh was a self-confessed kidnapper and killer of Israeli soldiers.

Mark Durie
Caulfield North, Vic

DENIERS of Israeli and Mossad involvement in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh are delusional. The scale of the operation alone screams state involvement, so the Israeli Foreign Minister’s arrogant denial is risible.

Enough, too, of the tirade from supporters of Israel attempting to defend the indefensible! Political assassination, wherever it occurs, whoever is the victim, and whatever ruses are employed, is reprehensible.

Malcolm Fraser is right: citing the Holocaust in justification, and the perennial strident claims of anti-Semitism on the part of critics of state-sponsored murder, will no longer wash.

Graeme Noonan
Phillip Island, Vic

I WOULD imagine that intelligence agencies all over the world forge passports for their agents to use in secret operations. Whilst not condoning the misuse of Australian passports, may I suggest that the only mistake made here was to get caught doing so.

Dave Aldridge
Fullarton, SA

FOR half a century or so, Australian governments of various political persuasions have enthusiastically if indiscriminately joined in the US-led conga line of supporters of Israel. It’s now more than a little pathetic that Kevin Rudd and Stephen Smith should be acting all hurt that no-nonsense Israel has allegedly demonstrated its contempt for such a weak-kneed supporter by forging Australian passports to facilitate an extra-judicial death.

But does anyone really anticipate that Australia will move to a more balanced Middle East policy? Rudd and Smith should can their confected outrage: they’ll be back in the conga line just as soon as decently possibly.

Bob Curren
Kensington Park, SA

Former Aussie ambassador questions the closeness between Israel and Australia

Published on 28 February 2010 in Israel. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

The following article in today’s Sunday Age is by Ross Burns, a former Australian Ambassador in the Middle East:

In the course of a career in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, much of it spent handling Middle East matters, I rarely heard language as portentous as the statements on relations with Israel from Australian political leaders in the past couple of days.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said he had called in the ambassador of Israel to seek Israel’s co-operation in following up information that three Australian passports were used by suspects allegedly associated with the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior ues figure in Dubai.

“I made it crystal clear to the ambassador that if the results of that investigation cause us to come to the conclusion that the abuse of Australian passports was in any way sponsored or condoned by Israeli officials, then Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend . . . In the course of that inquiry, we would expect the Israeli government . . . to fully co-operate . . . If we don’t receive that cooperation, then there is a distinct possibility that we would draw adverse conclusions.”

The message was even stronger in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s version: “This is of the deepest concern to the Australian government . . . It is not just one of those little things that happens that you deal with today and it’s fixed tomorrow.”

This prompt response to the protection of Australian national interests is fully justified. But it is remarkable in that the present government, led by a prime minister happy to be described as a “Zionist”, has held back from the slightest criticism of Israel, in spite of the many excesses of its response to the rocketing from Gaza in early 2009 and in the face of the obvious disinterest in the Netanyahu government in ending settlement activity on occupied lands to advance a “two-state solution”.

What has gone wrong? Has Australia encouraged in Israel an assumption that it is not just a supporter of Israel but an uncritical one? The acting prime minister during the Gaza operation, Julia Gillard, quickly cranked out two mantras – “Hamas brought this on itself” and “Israel has a right to defend itself”. She neglected to add that the “right to defend itself” also requires it to act within international norms.

While most Western countries have been cautious in their dealings with Benjamin Netanyahu and his openly anti-Arab Foreign Minister, Australia appeared more enthused than ever. Instead of buttressing US President Barack Obama’s stand on settlement activity, for instance, Australia floated a series of vacuous but highly symbolic gestures towards Israel including parliamentary congratulations on the sixth decade of its existence (not normally a topic for parliamentary resolutions) and instituting a “leadership exchange” jamboree at deputy prime ministerial level that no other nation enjoys except the United States.

Most inexplicably of all, perhaps, Australia has been in the forefront of those countries that have chosen to blacken the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza war, headed by Richard Goldstone. I knew Goldstone in South Africa as a judge in the Orange Free State. Even under apartheid, he had devised a notable process of law reform that helped unravel the race-based political system. His energy, imagination and sincerity were without bounds.

I flew down to Bloemfontein to tap some of that inspiration while I was waiting to present credentials to then president F. W. de Klerk. The day we spent talking was among the most heartening I spent in South Africa. In my view, he did more than anyone except Nelson Mandela to help South Africa map a law-based path to negotiations. None of this has been noted 15 years later in Australia’s bucketing of his immensely thorough and impartial work last year.

This is perhaps an indicator, too, of our downgrading of the status of UN resolutions that define how a peaceful outcome to the Palestinian issue must be realised.

The ALP has stripped all reference to those UN instruments from its policy platform- strange for a party that still claims an “internationalist” approach to world affairs. Stranger still for a country that aspires to a seat on the Security Council.

Likewise, the government has sadly completed the work of its predecessor in neglecting our links with the Arab world. Except for drop-by calls on the way to Iraq or Afghanistan or to attend international meetings, I am aware of no bilateral foreign ministerial visits to the Arab world.

Of course, nothing that Australia might have said would necessarily have dissuaded Mossad from its obsessive tradecraft, and several countries more measured in their approach to Israel had their passports abused. The episode has all the marks of another over-the-top operation, the objectives of which could never justify the fallout. As soon as a figure like Mahmoud al- Mabhouh is rubbed out, another 10 enter the system.

It is unlikely that Australia will get the co-operation it seeks. The dark fulminations will pass. Economic links are minimal and won’t be affected. The ambassador-designate might have to cool her heels a bit longer in Canberra and the scrutiny of anything the Israelis present as “evidence” might be intensified.

Given community pressures and an election coming up, the old pattern will resume-hopefully, however, with fewer oscillations between euphoria and rejection.

That requires a more hard-nosed emphasis on Australian interests, including those in the wider region, by a government and party that have been too smitten for their own (or Israel’s) good.

Australia needs to find its voice over Israel (but it ain’t likely)

Published on 28 February 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

A fine letter in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald:

Finally, Kevin Rudd has done the unthinkable and questioned Israel about its actions (”Betrayed PM should not be taken for granted by Israel”, February 26). As Peter Hartcher points out, this is not the Prime Minister’s style.

Mr Rudd seems to have a distorted his Christianity by stating that “Israel is in his DNA”. As a Christian, I would have hoped he would recall the essence of the Christian message – that we are all children of God and implicitly share the same DNA: Muslim, Jewish, Christian and everyone else.

Mr Rudd was silent on the invasion of Gaza in February 2008, which left more than 120 Palestinians dead. He was silent about the deaths of more than 1300 Palestinians in January last year. He dismissed the United Nations fact-finding mission to Gaza, led by Richard Goldstone, that called for transparent war crimes investigations on both sides.

He would have also ignored the extrajudicial killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh but for the forgery of the three Australian passports. Certainly not a perfect example of man committed to following the principle of international law, but better late than never.

Yes, Israel needs friends, and there is no question that Australia remains one, but friends must be accountable for their actions. If Israel wishes to see the end of Hamas arms traders and of rocket attacks, it needs to follow international law, cease attacks by its air force, navy and army on Palestinians, and end the occupation of Palestinian territory.

Stewart Mills Balmain