This is something one doesn’t see every day. The former editor of the Australian Jewish News, Dan Goldberg, writes what Jews should be acknowledging this Passover: The bitter truth — hard as it may be to write, horrible as it is to admit — is that the occupation has brutalised us, corrupted our children and…
Showing all posts tagged Australia
Who will fill the silences?
An interesting article today by Crikey publisher Eric Beecher on the crisis in modern journalism. It’s hard to disagree with much of this, except to wonder what kind of values we are truly missing from the mainstream media. Investigative work must be done to sustain democracy, to be sure, but how many stories were being…
The Jewish community leaders abusing their positions
The following letters appear in this week’s Australian Jewish News: The ironies never end. The first thing waiting for me upon my return to Jerusalem from my speaking tour of Australia, where, like a Marrano, I had a secret meeting with Jewish professors in Melbourne and had to address the Jewish community of Sydney from…
Jews are getting the image of being afraid of debate
My following article appears on the leading US blog Mondoweiss: Jeff Halper, Israeli/American peace activist, retired anthropologist and head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), writes in his recent book, An Israeli in Palestine, of the moment he became a “critical Israeli”: “I first became aware of being an ”˜Israeli in Palestine’ on…
Paying a price for supporting Palestine
The following letter is written by Omar Hassan, the Education Officer of Monash University’s Students Association. I spoke on Wednesday for Palestine Solidarity Week at La Trobe University, Monash University and Melbourne University to packed houses (one blogger’s thoughts here). A number of Zionist students even protested outside my Monash event (though remained remarkably mute…
An unhelpful discourse on Israel
The following article is written by Israeli/American peace activist Jeff Halper for the Australian Jewish News but the paper refuses to run the piece, despite spending weeks attacking Halper and his supporters in its pages: The uproar in the organized Jewish community over the prospect of my speaking in Australia is truly startling to an…
The enforcers are weak
Independent Australian Jewish Voices blogger Michael Brull writes in New Matilda about the limits of “acceptable” debate on Israel/Palestine in Australia: Desperate to promote Israeli Government policy, the Australian Jewish establishment has resorted to calling all kinds of people anti-Semites — even Jews
When will the reporters refuse to be bought?
The role of the Australian Zionist lobby starts to get the treatment it deserves in the mainstream media, namely exposure. But there is a long way to go.
We’ve got to keep on talking
Lebanese Chess is a fascinating blog written by a Lebanese Australian. His recent post is titled, “A week of speeches“: Khatami, Halper and Loewenstein … three public speakers at Australia’s main political university, the Australian National University (ANU), in a week. I went to see them all, and nothing much out of the three surprised…
Some Jews like debate, while others, well…
The following letters appear in this week’s Australian Jewish News: FORUM FOR DEBATE I WAS dismayed that The AJN publisher decided that his readership was not entitled to (or capable of) making up its own mind as to events it wishes to attend (AJN 13/03). The AJN, or any other newspaper, should be a forum…