Below is the text of a letter sent by the AJDS Executive to Bob Carr on 7 March 2012.
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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.
Sol Salbe has done the world a great service by translating David Grossman’s essay about the death of a Palestinian in Israeli police custody. It is all too reminiscent of an Australian indigenous death in custody story. Liberty Victoria has issued an important press release concerning security assessments of refugees in Australia. The text is below, and also in the attachment. 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 Shimon Cowen has published an article in a conservative journal highly critical of programs to promote anti-bullying of young gay people, because he believes them to ‘normalize’ homosexuality. Sunday, 4 March 2012 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 Wootten offers a long critique of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s critique of The Promise. The AJDS deplores the decision undertaken by Students for Palestine to hold a protest outside Adass Synagogue in Melbourne on Saturday, February 25th. There is no excuse for religious harassment, whether or not it is to make a political point. 12th February 2012
As Sol writes:
Last Friday Haaretz did something unusual: it placed an opinion piece on top of its front page. But it wasn’t just an ordinary opinion piece, it was written by one of the country foremost novelists, David Grossman. The article, like Emile Zola’s J’accuse, to which it has been compared, was a moral critique. Many who read it were very moved. But the moral missive never appeared in English (at least to my knowledge). The English Haaretz has always been somewhat reticent in presenting Israel to the world. And of course translating Grossman is not easy, he is a master of the language and the art of writing.I have no idea whether I have done justice to this work. But it needed to be translated. The message is too important.*Hebrew original: http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/1.1649589*Translated by Sol Salbe of the Middle East News Service, Melbourne Australia .
For the rest go to
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.
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.
His views aside, the issue is an important one for advocates of free speech and how to deal with what is seen as offensive speech.
I offered this opinion in Galusaustralis.
15:00 until 17:00
Multicultural Hub Melbourne -Green Room, 506 Elizabeth Street (opposite the Queen Victoria Market), a short walk from Melbourne Central station
What kind of Jewish community do we want?
What issues are important to us and what do we want to do about them?
Lots of us young Jews are searching for a Jewish identity which is relevant to the issues facing the world today. Many of us also feel alienated from the mainstream Melbourne Jewish community.
So let’s come together to talk about the kind of Jewish community that would be meaningful to each of us. We’ll talk about the kinds of ideas, events and programs which could exist: we’ll challenge the idea that there can only be one Jewish community, or one Jewish way of thinking, in Melbourne.
“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
He is a distinguised jurist and public figure in Australia
“If it is to maintain balance among the destabilising forces raging within and without, Israel is in desperate need of trusted but frank and independent critical voices such as the Diaspora could provide. Australian Jews can play such a role only if they open their eyes and ears and hearts and minds to the messages of the writers, artists, thinkers and people of insight and goodwill in the world, rather than attempt to shoot the messengers. Fortunately more and more are doing this. ”
Read his critique.
We also note that their decision to cancel was largely driven by a realisation of the adverse reaction to such a protest in the wider community, not because of any twinge of conscience on their own part.
AJDS Executive
14 February 2012
Rather than simply talk about the activities of the AJDS over the past year, I want to track our activities in the context of major and not so major events happening locally and in the wider world. It has been an interesting year and much has happened that has been of direct interest to us.
Nationally we have seen the introduction of a carbon tax passed by the federal parliament amid an environment of increasing scepticism about climate change.
The High Court threw out the Federal government’s so called Malaysia solution by which the government planned to deport to Malaysia 800 asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia, in exchange for accepting 4000 refugees from Malaysia. That both the government and opposition continue to play political games with the lives of asylum seekers is abhorrent to all who value the overriding importance of human rights, the protection of people escaping persecution, and the need to treat people with common dignity.