Category: Editorials

Dave Nadel is a longtime activist, and has made this comment about the media release:
This is particularly relevant this week. Nicola Roxon, granddaughter of Jewish refugees from Nazism, is allowing ASIO to get away with rejecting Tamil refugees who have already been cleared as genuine refugees. If the ASIO reports were made public they would undoubtedly reveal that ASIO is accepting advice from the Sri Lankan security forces who regard most Tamils as terrorists. This harkens back to 1939 when some German and Austrian Jews were barred as refugees from Australia and the US because of their “criminal records” They had criminal records because the Nazis considered all Jews as criminals and the local immigration officers were accepting information from the German police. Nicola Roxon should know better
Jews For Refugees Media Release: 16 May 2012
*Please forward on to your networks*
You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.
(The most often repeated injunction in the Torah – appearing 36 times)
The World Refugee Day Rally, endorsed by 50 organisations, will be held on Sunday 17 June and we invite people to join us under the Jews For Refugees banner. The rally starts at 12 midday on the steps of Parliament House in Spring Street and will march to join the Emerge Festival at the Fitzroy Town Hall. More details of our meeting point will be publicised well before the rally.
Ten years ago 700 people in the Jewish community publicly protested the plight of asylum seekers; people who had fled from war and persecution; people who literally arrived on our shores in boats seeking protection; people who were then locked up under an Australian government policy of mandatory, indefinite detention. That protest was co-ordinated by Jews For Refugees.
Mandatory detention is now 20 years old. Things have not changed. Asylum seekers arriving by boat are still locked up by the Australian government, and issues relating to who they are and how they arrive, are debated in a climate of fear, resentment and anger, largely directed at the very people who deserve a humane response from us – in a country blessed with the resources to assist those in need.
A new group of people in the Jewish community have restarted Jews For Refugees because many people in our community are aware, from their own family histories, of what it means to have been strangers; what it means to have a well founded fear of persecution; what it means to seek a safe haven; to seek asylum.
Spokesperson for the group, Max Kaiser said, “Actively working to help people in need is both an expression of contemporary Jewish attitudes and is strongly connected to Jewish values and ethics stretching back millennia”
For more details about Jews For Refugees contact Max Kaiser on 0423 234 069 or email ([email protected]). We can also be found on Facebook (search for ‘Jews For Refugees’ or go to https://www.facebook.com/JewsForRefugees).
Contact details: Max Kaiser Mob: 0423 234 069
Linda Briskman Mob: 0417 500 274

Peter Beinhart has become a heavy hitter in the American Jewish scene.
Below is his recent NYTimes op-ed piece of March 19th.
TO believe in a democratic Jewish state today is to be caught between the jaws of a pincer.
On the one hand, the Israeli government is erasing the “green line” that separates Israel proper from the West Bank. In 1980, roughly 12,000 Jews lived in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem). Today, government subsidies have helped swell that number to more than 300,000. Indeed, many Israeli maps and textbooks no longer show the green line at all.
In 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the settlement of Ariel, which stretches deep into the West Bank, “the heart of our country”. Through its pro-settler policies, Israel is forging one political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea -an entity of dubious democratic legitimacy, given that millions of West Bank Palestinians are barred from citizenship and the right to vote in the state that controls their lives.

Richard Silverstein in his blog has made this brilliant cartoon by Iranian Mana Neyestani available .

Richard Silverstein in his blog has made this brilliant cartoon by Iranian Mana Neyestani available .

The current round of violence between Israel and Gaza militants is another reminder, more than ever, of the need for international intervention in the region because both sides are incapable of resolving the situation. The civilian deaths in Gaza are to be particularly deplored, because based on past experience, this will do nothing to change the behaviour of those who fire rockets at Israel.
We also urge the Australian government do to all it can to bring about a cessation of hostilities and a long-term resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict.
In 2010 AJDS passed a motion at its AGM which included the following points which we continue to endorse.
“We call upon Israel to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip and restore the supply of fuel, food and medicines, school supplies and other materials needed to support the population;
2. We call on Israel to immediately cease the practice of collective punishment and to stop any military action endangering the life of the civilian populations inside the Gaza Strip, and an end to Palestinian attacks;
3. We also call upon Egypt to open the Rafah border crossing to restore the fuel, food and medicines, school supplies and other materials needed to support the population;
4. Furthermore, we call upon Egypt and Israel to open the borders and airport to so that ordinary export and trade from Gaza can occur into local and international markets.
Endorsed at the AGM.”
The following letter also appeared from the AJDS in The Australian on Jan 4 2010 and remains pertinent.
“THE civilian population of Gaza continues to suffer a a year after Operation Cast Lead. The Israeli government, while using propaganda to deny the facts, continues to besiege the Palestinian population through collective punishment. The price of the siege of Gaza and the illegal occupation of the territories is one that provokes violence, extremism, and retaliation while Israel continues to be cruelly repressive. Because of this, Palestinians will continue to suffer far more than Israelis, and Israel itself become more cocooned and devoid of any moral authority. Even if Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs cannot live easily together, they should at least have the opportunity to live in two independent and viable states without permanent militarisation.”

Below is the text of a letter sent by the AJDS Executive to Bob Carr on 7 March 2012.
—————–
Dear Senator Carr,
The Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) welcomes your appointment as Minister for Foreign Affairs.
As an organisation within the Jewish community, we particularly aim to offer a considered and alternative viewpoint to members of the Jewish community and others in Australia. The AJDS was formed in 1984 by Norman Rothfield and others including Moss Cass, a former Labor government minister in the Whitlam government. It aims to promote free discussion on issues of social justice, politics, human rights and conflict resolution – particularly in relation to the Israeli Palestinian conflict where we have consciously avoided the stereotyping and fear-mongering that are all too common in public debate on both the Left and Right.
The AJDS actively counters the false view that the Australian Jewish community speaks with a single voice on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. We have all complained at some time about the indifference of the world to the plight of the Jewish people at their most horrific period in human history. Neither can we then ignore the plight of Palestinians seeking their own self determination. Just as the international community supported the establishment of Israel, so too it is equally important that the international community support resolution of the conflict through a two state solution with the establishment of Palestine and resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem.
The public position taken by the main Jewish organisations such as the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) and the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) downplays the complexities of the conflict and avoids casting a critical eye over Israeli policies that prolong the conflict, while readily highlighting Palestinian policies that do likewise. This does not in fact reflect the diversity of opinion in the Jewish community here, or indeed in Israel itself, particularly amongst younger people.
The AJDS believes that Australia can take a more forthright role through the power of international diplomacy, to bring an end to Israel’s 45 year-long occupation of the West Bank, by encouraging Israel and Palestinians to negotiate a settlement based on UN resolution 242 and other key decisions internationally, including an equitable distribution of resources such as water. Australia’s good relations with Israel and the Arab and Muslim world places Australia in a better position of influence than many other countries.

Liberty Victoria has issued an important press release concerning security assessments of refugees in Australia. The text is below, and also in the attachment.
Yesterday evening, some 50 people in Australia went to sleep not knowing whether they will ever be released from immigration detention. These people have committed no crime. They have spent more than a year in detention seeking to demonstrate that they are genuine refugees. At the end of that process, they have been found to be genuine refugees. That is, their case that they would be persecuted if they returned to the country from which they fled has been accepted.
They had the fair and legal expectation that they would then be released so as to pursue new lives either in Australia or some third country that would accept them for resettlement. They are still locked up.

In an article recently published in the Australian Family Association journal, Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen writes that the real goal of the homosexual “anti-bullying” program for schools is “the teaching and validation of homosexual behaviour at the early stages of child education”. He further argues that homosexual behaviour is a moral wrong.
Rabbi Cowen is essentially claiming that the homosexual “anti-bullying” program for schools has an agenda hidden behind the overt purpose of eliminating bullying behaviour.

James Zogby is one of the most intelligent voices in the Arab-American community, and this is an excellent article (in Tikkum magazine) about Iran, Israel, and the US
“There are lessons to be learned in order to avoid a confrontation from which no one will emerge a winner. Those in the U.S. who point to Israel’s 1981 strike against Iraq, conveniently ignore the fact that Saddam emerged undeterred. The next two decades witnessed Iraq and Iran engaging in an orgy of blood-letting, in part leading to Iraq’s fatal occupation of Kuwait and all that followed. Then there were Israel’s repeated invasions, occupations and bombardments of Lebanon which only devastated that country, leading to the emergence and empowering of Hizbollah. Or Israel’s war and strangulation policy against Gaza which only resulted in death and destruction, increasing bitterness and a deepening Palestinian divide, making the search for peace more difficult.”
Full text