Israel

Welcome to The Punch’s Biggest Moments of 2011. Each day until the Friday before Christmas, we’ll be counting the events which marked 2011. Our list contains moments from politics, popular culture, tragedy, sport and more. Some are frivolous. Others are deadly serious. These are the moments which had us talking in 2011. More to the point, they’re the moments that had YOU talking.

What happened
Fiona Byrne, the mayor of Marrickville in inner Sydney, backed a motion to support the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. This basically meant that no Israeli products would be sold within the boundaries of Marrickville Council. Tough luck, bagel-lovers. Good news for Vietnamese pork roll sellers.

What happened next
All hell broke loose. Some argued that councils should stick to local services like rubbish collection. Others pointed out that in a region which has nearly 200 ethnicities living cheek to jowl, there were plenty of evil repressive regimes much more worthy of attention than a democratic state fighting for its right to exist – even considering the ongoing claims for Palestinian statehood.

Continue reading "Biggest moments of 2011 #23 Marrickville invades Israel" »

For the first time, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recip Tayipp Erdogan, has apologised for the killings of 14,000 people in Dersim - a town in south-eastern part of the country now known as Tunceli - between 1936 and 1939.

The apology came after a war of words between Erdogan and the leader of the main opposition party. Turkey has finally realised that it will not be able to end the Kurdish rebel war through military measures alone.

Why is this important? Well this is not Turkey’s only historical dilemma, and many will be wondering if this could be applied to other minorities.

Continue reading "Victims of one vile holocaust must recognise another" »

Imagine you spent hundreds of years dreaming about and then building your dream home in a promised land. Then imagine that this dream materialised into none other than the house of God on earth, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Now imagine there was a terrible tyrant who exiled you and your entire people from that land. After being in exile for 2000 years, a situation arose where it became possible for you to return.

As you see your beautiful home, which evokes a deep memory of your ancestor’s connection to a holy land, you notice that someone else lives there now. They have developed their own stories and connections to the land and its olive groves, rolling hills and pristine springs. What should you do?

Continue reading "A Zionist speaks out in support of Palestine" »

This article was co-authored by Professor Douglas Kirsner, Ari Suss and Geoffrey Winn.

A militant campaign that singles out Israel alone in the world as worthy of boycott, divestment and sanctions has met with a surprising form of resistance. Michael Danby MP, the Member for Melbourne Ports, has been organizing these Hot Chocolate ‘sit-ins’ together with members of the ALP leadership and other public figures such as Gerard Henderson and Jana Wendt.

Gerard Henderson explained the context in his Sydney Morning Herald column Jews know acceptance still has its exceptions when he pointed to the 1930s British Fascists’ targeting and smashing up Jewish-owned shops in London’s East End.

After reading Henderson’s column,  Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd suggested to Danby that he join him for a hot chocolate at Max Brenner’s Melbourne CBD shop. That Max Brenner shop was the target of violent anti-Israel protest by BDS militants on July 1. The police made nineteen arrests during the violent protest.

Continue reading "Hot chocolate a cure for those who ignore history" »

So Archbishop Desmond Tutu has congratulated the Marrickville Council for their temporary boycott of Israeli products. But living a Zionist-free life is actually much harder than most people probably think. This fact finally dawned on the Council earlier this year, when they were forced to concede that their attempt to boycott Israel as part of the global Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions campaign was “impractical and untenable.”

Yet last week in the Federal Parliament, the Labor Party watered down a motion moved in the House of Representatives by Julie Bishop on the issue, voting to remove the condemnation of Marrickville Council contained in the original motion.

The reasoning behind Labor’s refusal to condemn Marrickville Council remains opaque. Perhaps some Labor MPs are sympathetic to the goal of removing Zionism in all its forms from their lives, or perhaps they are just afraid to incur the wrath of their Greens allies, some of whom - including Marrickville Mayor Fiona Byrne - still advocate for “in-principle” support of the boycott.

Continue reading "Living Zionist-free is Tutu hard" »

Three days ago we saw a reaffirmation of the long-standing strong relationship between Israel and the United States with the visit of the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington DC and his second speech to the Joint Session of Congress.

Australia counts both the Unites States and Israel as close friends and allies.

The Prime Minister’s speech to Congress could not come at a more critical time for the Middle East and for the world.

Continue reading "Netanyahu and the Middle East’s epic battle" »

On 10 May, that little sliver of land, Israel, about one third the size of Tasmania but burdened with decades of unremitting attacks on its very legitimacy and existence, celebrates her 63rd year of independence. There are good reasons why many Australians should celebrate that.

We could talk about the historical bond between our two nations dating back to the ANZACS. A bond that is underpinned by our shared commitment to freedom and democracy, and respect for women’s rights, gays, minorities and the rule of law. We could celebrate that we are both thriving multicultural states that have successfully absorbed and integrated millions of refugees and immigrants from around the world.

And it wouldn’t hurt to reflect on the irony that Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy more rights, freedoms and liberties than do their neighbours in any number of Middle East nations - where they are currently dying while fighting for these very same rights and privileges.

Continue reading "Israel: Celebrating 63 years of independence" »

Last night at a meeting of the Marrickville Council, the council voted eight to four to not pursue its boycott of Israel.

Marrickville Council’s abortive attempt to implement the Global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (GBDS) campaign against Israel in Sydney’s Inner West should be a wake-up call. The moment to turn this objectionable campaign around should not be lost, else we will see more loopy home-grown forays into foreign policy. While this campaign may have been temporarily halted at a municipal level, it has gained considerable ground within Australia’s unions.

In moving her motion at Marrickville Council, Greens Councillor, Cathy Peters noted that the BDS campaign had the support of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, the South Coast Labour Council, and various state branches of the ASU, Teachers’ Union, LHMWU, CFMEU and MUA. In fact this is only half the list.

Continue reading "BDS BS: Labor’s infected and the Greens are gangrenous" »

Kosher pickle lovers, rest easy. Sydney’s Marrickville Council has backed down overnight from its plan to boycott all things Israeli.

This is a win both for common sense, and for anyone who enjoys the delicious, sour, garlicky, Israeli Eskal pickles pictured above, which will continue to be available for purchase on the shelves of Marrickville Woolworths, as they have been for a decade or more.

Despite butchering her run at state parliament, not to mention the credibility of both the Greens and her own council over the Israel boycott, Marrickville Mayor Fiona Byrne went down swinging in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, with a bizarre, longwinded justification of her council’s right, nay civic duty, to embroil itself in matters beyond garbage collection.

Continue reading "Eskalating pressure gets council out of a pickle" »

Any relief we may have had when Libya was finally suspended from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March has certainly been short-lived. It appears Syria, another terror state, is set to take its place.

Syria is one of four candidates vying for four seats on the 47-member body that will go to Asian nations when the General Assembly votes on new members on 20 May.

Unless another Asian country nominates, which seems unlikely at this stage, Syria will win a three-year term on the UN body charged with strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the world.

Continue reading "Human rights? Surely you can’t be Syria" »

I was shocked to learn this week that infighting had broken out amongst the Greens, largely because I was under the impression they were pacifists.

But yet again I was wrong. The Greens have apparently had an internal falling out over their poor showing in the NSW election result. I didn’t believe it myself until I unearthed this secret recording of the Greens’ first ever full-blown factional war….

CONVENOR: Okay, is everybody here? There are still a few empty seats.

Continue reading "Greens war not kosher, says Marrickville mayor" »

Ariel Sharon resigned from his role as Israeli defence minister on this day in 1983, following findings that he had failed to prevent the massacre of hundreds in two refugee camps.

It’s Tuesday at The Punch. What’s on your mind? Share it here.

One can’t help but compare the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to that of a cat with nine lives.

They seem to die over and over again with no resolution, but how long until their luck runs out, the blood boils over and the Gaza region breaks out in all out war.

Since the establishment of the state of Israel, crisis points have come and gone and the populations of Jewish and Palestinian peoples have found no peace. Unfortunately this time will be no different.

Continue reading "Netanyahu standing in the way of his own peace" »

White House correspondent Helen Thomas turns 90 in two months. She has reported from the US seat of power through 10 presidencies since 1960.

Last week she told a Jewish online news service Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine,” and “Remember, these people [Palestinians] are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not Germans’. It’s not Poland’s.”

This week the mounting pressure boiled over and her long and illustrious journalistic career was over. Poof. Fifty seven years of building a media legacy down the drain.

Continue reading "What’s the age limit on making offensive comments?" »

The simplest possible outcome of the investigations into Israel’s deadly raid on an aid convoy would be failure to prove any of the Palestinian activists on board had links to terrorist networks or other violent radicals. At least it would make an open-and-shut case that Israel used disproportionate force by sending commandos onto the flotilla - but the early indications are this finding is unlikely.

If Israel can establish, as its officials have suggested, there were weapons on the convoy or that some of the activists had links to terrorists then it will be immediately able to throw a cloak of legitimacy around the operation, in which nine people were killed and one Australian was shot in the leg.

The international Palestinian activist movement must recognise the political risk of fraternising with extremists. If it turns out some unsavoury characters or cargo were on board, we are back to the familiar Middle East merry-go-round of blame.

Continue reading "Israel: How to test friends and radicalise people" »

Australia-Israeli relations have not come under this much pressure since the bungling spook and lothario Amir Laty was thrown out of Canberra in 2003.

Faking Australian passports is arguably a more serious offence than trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to seduce female officials and cultivating the daughter of then Attorney General Philip Ruddock. That is what Laty did before he got his marching orders.

In Canberra’s leafy diplomatic neighbourhood of Yarralumla yesterday a senior Israeli diplomat, who is almost certainly a spy, was told to pack his or her bags for Tel Aviv.

Continue reading "Oz-Israel relations hit new low as Canberra expels spy" »

It’s Tuesday at The Punch

Israel joined the United Nations today in 1949.

After a torrent of undiplomatic language in the days after they discovered that Israel had used forged Australian passports in the assassination plot against a terrorist gun dealer in Dubai, Kevin Rudd and Stephen Smith have fallen silent.

The British Government has stepped up its diplomatic offensive against Tel Aviv over the passport scandal by expelling Mossad’s London station chief, but Canberra has so far not followed suit although we have abstained from a vote in the United Nations.

Britain has a much more robust tradition of hard headed diplomacy than Australia. Our diplomats are trained to whisper and dance a two-step with the devil rather than risk the megaphone and a public confrontation.

Continue reading "It’s unlikely we’ll do much to punish Israel" »

Britain’s expulsion of an Israeli diplomat is a lesson for Australia to stop handling Israel with kid gloves.

Israel has made clear that it does not respond to gentle persuasion or constructive criticism from its friends, nor does it listen to the quiet language of international law.

Israel is willing to abuse the trust of its friends by defrauding their passports, assassinating people on foreign territory, and approving new settlements on Palestinian land on the eve of peace talks.

Continue reading "Time to stop handling Israel with kid gloves" »

In the latest development in the fake passport controversy, Britain has expelled a senior Israeli diplomat and demanded a public assurance that Israel will not misuse British passports again.

This is in response to Israel’s Mossad spy agency allegedly killing a Hamas leader in Dubai in January, with the assassination team using forged foreign passports, including at least three from Australia.

However, you don’t have to be a chest thumping, Alexander Downer-like armchair warrior who relishes assassination to realise that western countries, including Australia, are overreacting.

Continue reading "Let’s not overreact to Mossad’s hit on a terrorist" »

To the casual observer the Israeli embassy in Canberra looks like any other diplomatic mission in the leafy suburbs of Deakin and Yarralumla. Appearances can be deceiving.

The inside of Israel’s chancery building is more like a mini-fortress than the well-to-do family home visible from the street. Visitors are treated with all the caution you would expect from the world’s most suspicious and fearful regime whose enemies are everywhere, even quiet and peaceful Canberra.

There are no friendly receptionists offering cups of tea and visitors are greeted by lean looking men with crew cuts and bulges under their arms, ear pieces permanently in place. There are no smiles, no small talk, just searches, scans and an array of CCTV cameras.

Continue reading "Behind the no-nonsense world of Israeli security" »