The following letters appear in this week’s Australian Jewish News: Jeff Halper in The Sydney Morning Herald (10/04) wrote, “Diaspora Jews need to revalidate Diaspora Jewish culture (that Zionism dismissed as superficial and ephemeral) and find genuine, compelling reasons why their children should remain Jewish. Blindly supporting Israel’s extreme right-wing and militaristic policies is not…
Showing all posts tagged Israel lobby
Just try saying no for once
Following the recent criticism of the local Zionist lobby sending journalists and politicians on free trips to Israel, today’s Canberra Times features an interesting piece by Joe Wakim, founder of the Australian Arabic Council and a former multicultural affairs commissioner: If we are going to blow the whistle on undeclared overseas junkets by our MPs,…
You bomb and you pay a price
As somebody who now openly supports the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign against Israel, this recent news somehow slipped under the radar: Pro-Israel groups have attacked [British super-market] Tesco for setting up a customer helpline for those considering boycotting Israeli goods. Tesco says it provided the service in expectation of calls questioning its stocking…
We shouldn’t be grieving for the death of newspapers
My following article appears today in Online Opinion: As a journalist who spends the vast majority of my life online, the seemingly never-ending debates about the future of the media and newspapers can be exhausting and predictable. The same mantras are heard over and over again. Where will the news come from when newsprint dies?…
We don’t like it, so please stop it
Zionist intimidation, part 6543. Zionist insanity: The Jewish news magazine Joods Actueel has taken offence at the opera Samson and Dalila, which will première on 28 April at the Flemish Opera House in Antwerp. The 1877 opera, by Camille Saint-Saëns, contains a libretto based on the Old Testament book Judges and deals with the impossible…
Stone the journalist doing his job
Stop the presses! A British journalist states the bleeding obvious: The BBC Trust yesterday called into question the corporation’s reporting of the most sensitive news story of modern times, publishing findings that the BBC Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, had breached guidelines on accuracy and impartiality. The ruling will be seized upon by campaigners who…
A covert foreign agent for Israeli governments?
The kind of story that the mainstream media would be covering if they weren’t afraid of asking the tough questions about the Zionist lobby in the US: On March 2 former American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) foreign policy chief Steve Rosen filed a civil lawsuit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.…
Don’t take these junkets
It’s encouaraging that the Sydney Morning Herald runs this story today, continuing the necessary push-back against free trips to Israel taken by journalists and politicians, mostly too clueless (or pleased?) to realise that such visits seem to magically end up resulting in returnees praising the wonders of democratic Israel. Have these free-loaders no back-bone? How…
Triggering a necessary clash
The Israel Lobby co-author Stephen Walt has a few helpful tips for the Obama administration in pressuring Israel to improve its behaviour. Such as: In the past, the United States has often pressed other states to upgrade their own ties with Israel.… If pressure is needed, however, the United States could try a different tack.… …
Failure is no longer an option
The New York Times is known to often accurately reflect American foreign policy intentions. Hence, as the Obama administration has privately acknowledged the impending clash with the new, extremist Israeli government, the Times publishes a piece by a “progressive” Israeli lobbyist, J Street’s Jeremy Ben Ami, and puts the Zionist fanatics on notice (are the…