Jews Against the Occupation – Sydney
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The following statement was issued on 3 October 2010 by 14 leading Palestinian human rights organisations regarding the Palestinian leadership’s decision to delay discussion of the Goldstone report to the UN Human Rights Council investigating the Israeli attacks on Gaza in December 2009-March 2010.
On 2 October 2009, the Palestinian leadership – under heavy international pressure lead by the United States – deferred the draft proposal at the Human Rights Council endorsing all the recommendations of the UN Fact Finding Mission (the Goldstone Report). This deferral denies the Palestinian peoples’ right to an effective judicial remedy and the equal protection of the law. It represents the triumph of politics over human rights. It is an insult to all victims and a rejection of their rights. Continue reading ‘Palestinian NGOs deplore decision to muzzle discussion on UN report on Gaza war crimes’
| Help Israeli Human Rights Activist Ezra Nawih http://www.supportezra.net/ |
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
The Guardian (UK), 30 June 2009
A prominent Israeli peace activist is expected to be sentenced to several months in jail tomorrow in a high-profile prosecution which began after he tried to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Although activists who challenge the Israeli occupation are often arrested or detained for short periods, Ezra Nawi, a plumber from Jerusalem, is expecting a sentence of up to 18 months. He said he would lodge an immediate appeal, which may keep him out of prison initially, but it is likely he will be jailed within weeks.
In March he was convicted by a judge at a Jerusalem court of taking part in a riot and assaulting a police officer, charges he denies. The incident happened when the Israeli military sent bulldozers to demolish Palestinian shacks near the settlement of Carmel, close to Hebron, in February 2007.
Nawi, who is in his 50s, has worked with vulnerable Palestinian families in the hills around Hebron for at least eight years. But he is an unusual figure, even among Israel’s shrinking circle of leftwing activists.
Continue reading ‘Israeli peace activist faces jail over homes demolition protest’
Zochrot (Remembering) is a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948. The following interview was conducted by the Alternative Information Centre and is with the Eitan Bronstein, the director of Zochrot.
By Uri Avnery, Gush-Shalom, 9 May 2009
First of all, I want to apologize to all the good women who are engaged in the world’s oldest profession.
I recently described Shimon Peres as a political prostitute. One of my female readers has protested vigorously. Prostitutes, she pointed out, earn their money honestly. They deliver what they promise.
Our president, on the other hand, only tells the truth by accident. He is a political impostor and a political sham. To him, too, apply Winston Churchill’s words about a former Prime Minister: “The Right Honorable gentleman sometimes stumbles upon the truth, but he always hurries on as if nothing has happened.” Or the words of former minister Amnon Rubinstein about Ariel Sharon: “He blushes when he tells the truth.”
By Jeff Halper, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 2009
A funny thing happened to me on my way to synagogue in Sydney; my scheduled talk was cancelled.
Granted, I am very critical of Israel’s policies of occupation and doubt whether a two-state solution is still possible given the extent of Israel’s settlements. But this hardly warrants the demonisation to which I was subjected for weeks in the pages of the otherwise respectable Australian Jewish News.
The uproar caused by the prospect of my speaking to the Jewish community in Australia is truly startling to an Israeli. After all, opinions similar to mine are readily available in the mainstream Israeli media. Indeed, I write frequently for the Israeli press and appear regularly on Israeli TV and radio.
Why, then, the hysteria? Why was I banned from Temple Emanuel in Sydney, a self-proclaimed progressive synagogue. Why did I, an Israeli, have to address the Jewish community from a church? Why was I invited to speak in every university in eastern Australia, yet at Monash University I was forced to hold a secret meeting with Jewish faculty in a darkened room far from the halls of intellectual discourse?
Continue reading ‘Diaspora Jewry needs to let go of idealised Israel’
By Dror Etkes, Haaretz (Hebrew original), 15 March 2009
The demand to change Israel’s ethnocentric regime is a consequence of its 40-year long policy, which included the cultivation of the settlements.
“Durban 2″, scheduled for April in Geneva, of all places, again places the issue of boycotting Israel and the international community’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist, or lack thereof, on the agenda.
In the prevalent Israeli discourse, which is bolstered by the political establishment as well as by local media, initiatives for a partial or full boycott of Israel are perceived as a clear expression of antisemitism. Indeed, it is not inconceivable that some supporters of such a boycott are motivated in part by antisemitic sentiments. Antisemitism is a product of modern European culture, and despite the changes Europe has undergone over the twentieth century, it is plausible that certain norms and modes of thinking that originated in antisemitic ideology also affected parts of the European Left, whether consciously or not.
Nonetheless, the conclusion that most or all the supporters of a boycott of the Israeli state, or even those who negate Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish national home, are antisemitic, is self-righteous and unfounded. There are various reasons unrelated to antisemitism, leading different people, including many decent ones, to the conclusion that the idea of a Jewish state in the heart of the Arab Middle East is unjust, or at least, unfeasible.
Continue reading ‘Calls for a boycott not motivated by antisemitism’
The text below appeared as an editorial in the largest selling newspaper in Sydney, Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald on 13 March 2009. JAO-Sydney places the text here, not necessarily because we agree with it, but rather to demonstrate that actions attempting to stifle and censor debate on issues related to the Israel/Palestine conflict can only harm.
Israel is a democracy. It contains many political parties with a wide spectrum of views about how to approach the great issue of an eventual Palestinian settlement, as well as many more mundane policies. It has human rights groups which put the Israeli security forces under as intense and critical a scrutiny as any overseas counterpart. It has law professors who debate the legality of Israeli settlements and military operations in the West Bank and Gaza. But sometimes you wouldn’t suspect this from the actions and attitudes of its most prominent defenders abroad.
Here in Australia, we’ve just learnt that the respected Australian Jewish News has rejected advertisements that promote a speaking tour by Israeli professor Jeffrey Halper, who campaigns against the bulldozing of Palestinian homes. Sydney’s progressive Emanuel Synagogue has also cancelled a talk by the professor, because some people objected to what he would have said.
The newspaper’s publisher, Robert Magid, said he pulled the ads because he “doesn’t like” the promoters, three local groups called Jews Against the Occupation, Independent Australian Jewish Voices, and the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine. According to Mr Magid, they “use their Judaism to bash other Jews and issues associated with the Jewish community”. Maybe it’s because criticism that can’t be easily shrugged off as ill-informed or even as anti-Semitic is harder to answer.
Continue reading ‘Sydney Morning Herald Editorial: With friends like these …’
The Emanuel Synagogue Woollahra has rescinded its invitation to Israeli peace activist, Professor Jeff Halper, to speak at the synagogue on 23rd March. This follows the axing by the Australian Jewish News of an advertisement for Professor Halper’s other meetings in Sydney.
Professor Halper is Coordinator of the Israeli Committee against Housing Demolitions (ICAHD).
Vivienne Porzsolt, a spokesperson for Jews Against the Occupation – Sydney said: “It is regrettable that yet once again the power brokers of the Jewish community are seeking to block open discussion about Israel.”
Continue reading ‘JAO-Sydney Statement: Noxious culture of silence in the Jewish community’
Andrew West, 12 March 2009
Sydney Morning Herald
A leading Jewish publication stands accused of censorship after cancelling an advertisement for a series of lectures to be delivered by a visiting Israeli human rights campaigner.
The publisher of The Australian Jewish News, Robert Magid, confirmed that he had pulled an ad promoting the speaking tour of Jeffrey Halper, a Jewish Israeli professor who campaigns against the bulldozing of Palestinian homes.
