My following post was written for Khaldoun, the blog recently started by Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle East and North African Studies, where I’m a board member: Robustly debating Zionism has existed for as long as its existence. Jews, historically a persecuted people, were unafraid to discuss the merits or otherwise of the plan to…
Showing all posts tagged Independent Australian Jewish Voices
The rise and rise of humane Judaism
One of the only positive legacies of the Bush years has been the rise in Jewish voices of dissent in the mainstream. Sure, Diaspora dissent has existed for decades but rarely as loudly and influential as today. Inspirations and friends such as Tony Karon and Phil Weiss in the US, Brit Tony Judt and Independent…
How to lose Jewish friends in one easy step
Naomi Ragen is a prominent American-Israeli writer and playwright about to visit Melbourne for the writer’s festival. She is a typical, radical Zionist who believes that “terrorists” should be killed by the Jewish state. “We need to kill these people”, she told the Sydney Morning Herald today. Her message of peace? No withdrawals from occupied,…
Jews on Jews
My following article appears in Online Opinion: The 60th anniversary of Israel’s birth saw a flurry of praise by the worldwide Zionist community. The Australian Jewish News editorialised that “Jews all over the world feel Israel is the most special place on earth”. Furthermore, “the Israeli Defence Forces are the envy of the world ”¦…
Don’t meet/speak/hang out with dissident Jews
The following article, headlined, “Uni students face heat over Loewenstein debate”, appears in this week’s Australian Jewish News: A decision by Jewish university students to invite outspoken Israel critic Antony Loewenstein held at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has angered some community members. Hillel director Gary Samowitz, 25, said he organised the April…
A celebration that ignores the plight of Palestine
My following piece in the Melbourne Age, co-written with Michael Shaik, reflects on Israel’s 60th anniversary: “If you will it,” wrote Theodore Herzl, the founding father of the Zionist movement, in 1902, “it is no dream.” The dream to which he referred was the establishment of a Jewish state in the Arab country of Palestine.…
The lobby gets a refit
The recent launch of new Israel lobby in the US, J Street, is an encouraging sign. Its message is fairly conventional – two states for two peoples – but it’s far more moderate than the current loudest voices in the room, the hardline Zionist extremists (the situation in Australia is little different, hence the success…
From Australia to Canada with love
When Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV) launched in 2007, we were accused of being “self-styled radicals” and dangerous. We were clearly so irrelevant – Jewish solidarity on Israel was being challenged and therefore had to be countered – that the Zionist community has spent the last year hilariously demonising us and saying that we were…
Zionist delusions in full display
Following the Zionist response yesterday in the Melbourne Age to a recent article about Israel’s true history, two letters in today’s edition: Lamm is wrong ”¦ DANNY Lamm’s “she’s always right” take on Israel (Opinion, 7/4) runs counter to the evidence. Lamm’s line that “Israel and the Palestinian Authority are working together with great difficulty…
The Zionist lobby’s road map of delusion
Following my recent joint op-ed in the Melbourne Age – on the reality of life in racially exclusionary Israel/Palestine – today the inevitable response from the Zionist lobby. It’s almost embarrassing in its simplicity and dishonesty. So, below are the tried and true methods of the lobby’s (increasingly futile) points of attack: – Allege Israel…