Monday, March 5, 2007

Jewish coalition calls for open debate on Palestine

Jewish coalition calls for open debate on Palestine
Ben Cubby
March 6, 2007


A COALITION of prominent Australian Jews, including the philosopher Peter Singer, publisher Louise Adler and Robert Richter, QC, has sparked a furore in the Jewish community by announcing it will challenge what it sees as extreme pro-Israeli bias among Jews in Australia.

The group, Independent Australian Jewish Voices, has been criticised by some Jewish authorities for calling for more open debate on Israeli's treatment of Palestinians.

The organisation yesterday launched an online campaign to have "alternative voices" heard in the media. One organiser claimed many Australian Jews were "basically brainwashed" into unthinking support for Israeli government policy towards Palestine.

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, a major think tank, said the group was dangerous and unrepresentative.

"Some of the individuals are clearly committed to the delegitimisation of Israel," said Colin Rubenstein, the executive director of the council.

"They're simply using their Jewish ethnic background. It is clearly a small number of Jewish-born individuals who make their Jewishness known while they are being critical of Israel," Mr Rubenstein said.

A visiting British author, Melanie Phillips, last week nicknamed the group "Jews for Genocide", according to the Australian Jewish News. Phillips, who wrote Londonistan, a book criticising elements of the British Muslim community, could not be contacted to verify the claim yesterday.

Ms Adler, Melbourne University Press chief executive, a signatory to the group's petition, said she was outraged by the council's references to "Jewish-born individuals" when commenting on the group.

"When you are classified as Jewish-born or not, or who is a legitimate Jew - I don't want to use this analogy but you can only go back to the Third Reich," Ms Adler said.
"That criticism of Israel is automatically assumed to be anti-Semitism just equates to a way of shutting down debate. In Australia, in the early 21st century, we should be able to be more mature than that."

Mr Rubenstein said the coverage received by the group "made a nonsense of the claim that they are somehow suppressed or silenced".

The organisation is modelled on a similar Jewish group launched last month in Britain that includes the Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter, the comedian Stephen Fry and the filmmaker Mike Leigh.

Peter Slezak, one of the Australian project's founders and a senior lecturer in history and philosophy at the University of NSW, said supporters wanted "to stand up and let it be known that we have the right to question Israeli policy, that we believe in fair treatment of Palestinian people as well as Israelis."

Professor Slezak, whose mother survived the Auschwitz concentration camp in World War II, said he had received a death threat at the weekend after his views were presented in the Jewish media.

"There are people out there in the community who respond to this dog whistling, these references to Jewish-born and so on," Professor Slezak said. "There are simply a lot of people in the community who have basically been brainwashed over the years."

He conceded that the group's views represented a minority of Australian Jews, but said many were "quietly disturbed" by outspoken support for Israeli actions.

The organisation, which opened a website with 120 signatures yesterday, is supported by a list of prominent Australian academics and activists, including the Greens MLC Ian Cohen, the UTS lecturer Eva Cox and the La Trobe University professor Dennis Altman.

It hopes to gather thousands more signatures in coming days, hold forums and encourage further debate about Israel's actions.

2 comments:

Darrin Hodges said...

"Jewish coalition calls for open debate on Palestine"

lol, is this like "Jews for genocide"?

UnionFaruque said...

War and hate is not the answer.
Talk is good.